According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Twitter will appoint Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a member of the company's board of directors. Musk will serve as a Tier II director until 2024.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal confirmed Musk's new role on the board in two tweets. He called Musk "both a big believer in the service and a strong critic of the service" and said he would "bring tremendous value to our board."
Musk responded via Twitter that he was looking forward to "making significant improvements to Twitter in the coming months!" Musk, who had just been appointed, dared to publicly say that he wanted to make "major improvements" to Twitter, and Musk was indeed prepared, but he did not know how other board members of Twitter would feel.
On April 4, local time, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter, although he complained about the social media platform's definition of "freedom of speech." Musk's acquisition made him the company's largest individual shareholder.
Shortly after the news was revealed, Musk conducted a survey of fans via Twitter about the issue of "creating an edit button." Seemingly impatient to fulfill the duties of a board member, he unceremoniously took the first step toward his promise that "he would make significant improvements to Twitter."
Jack Dorsey, Twitter's founder and former CEO, said he was "delighted" that Musk had joined Twitter's board and said, "He cares deeply about our world and the role Twitter plays in it." Jack Dorsey resigned as CEO in November 2021 but will remain on the board until sometime in May.
But CNBC pointed out that Musk's investment may trigger more problems with his SEC. The SEC requires anyone who holds more than 5 percent of the company's shares to disclose their acquisition within 10 days.
Musk first acquired Twitter's shares on March 14, 2022, but didn't disclose that information until April 4, 2022, 21 days after the acquisition. According to CNBC, the SEC's fines for such violations are usually modest (at least for the world's richest man), often around $100,000. Of course, we can also think that the world's richest man doesn't care about these little money.
Interestingly, Musk has repeatedly clashed with the SEC over the content of the tweets. In 2018, the SEC sued Musk on the grounds that he had received "funding guarantees" to take Tesla private. Later, a judge ordered a lawyer to scrutinize Musk's content before he tweeted.
The SEC is still continuing to investigate Musk's Twitter poll, which is the one that sold 10% of Tesla shares. So, there's reason to believe that the SEC won't let him go this time, so good luck!