On April 11, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal posted a message saying that Musk ultimately refused to join the company's board after several discussions with Twitter's directors.
According to the CEO, Musk joined Twitter's board on the condition that he accept background checks and formal appointments, but Musk eventually refused.
In the end, Agravar had to find a step on his own and said: "Whether the shareholders are on our board or not, we have and will always listen to their valuable opinions." "I think it's the best option." "There will be disruptions in the future, but our goals and priorities will not change."
The news, which stirred up a thousand waves, once again sparked speculation about Musk's intentions to buy Twitter. Previously, the news that Musk became Twitter's largest individual shareholder has shocked the world once. Since then, Musk has also said many times that he will make some changes to Twitter, which will shock people again. Twitter's board of directors hastened to act to reassure Musk, such as inviting him to join the board.
If Musk joins the board, his stake in Twitter will be limited by no more than 14.9 percent. But now his refusal to join the board means he won't be tied to the deal and can do anything.
While it's unclear why Musk refused to join the board, the market speculates that Musk may increase his stake in Twitter or take a full-scale takeover of Twitter in the future. Musk seems determined to change Twitter to Musk era, thereby changing the status quo on social media.
But before that, let's take a look at what Twitter's goals are, and where will Musk start with Twitter?
1
Back in 2020, investment firm Elliott Management acquired a 4 percent stake in Twitter in order to force Twitter to oust its founder and longtime CEO, Jack Dorsey, and intend to replace him with a more business-focused leader in hopes of maximizing the commercial value of this social media.
Elliott's point is that because Dorsey is also serving as Square's CEO, he can't give Twitter enough attention in both roles, so he buys Twitter shares in order to oust the CEO.
Eventually, Twitter's management reached an agreement with Elliott, allowing Elliott and Silver Lake Partners to enter Twitter's board of directors and setting ambitious new growth targets for Twitter. Failure to meet these targets could also result in heavy fines for Dorsey and the company as a whole.
Last February, these goals set by Elliott and Twitter were made public:
By the fourth quarter of 2023, daily active users reached 315 million (Twitter currently has 217 million users, an increase of 18 million in 2021).
Annual revenue in 2023 is $7.5 billion (Twitter has revenue of $3.7 billion in 2020 and $5.1 billion in 2021).
In the current situation, these are actually some difficult goals to achieve. Probably because Elliott put too much pressure on the company, Dorsey voluntarily resigned as CEO last November. Parag Argrawal, Twitter's chief technology officer, took the position as CEO.
In a way, this may have been something Elliott wanted, after all, its goal in the beginning was to kill Dorsey. As a result, it seems that Twitter will also be much less stressful. But the reality didn't change, and shortly after Agrawal took office, the company was still required to maintain these growth targets after Dorsey. So, no matter who the leader is, Twitter is destined to be a very tough path ahead, especially when it comes to user growth.
The dramatic change came after Musk announced that he had acquired a 9.1 percent stake in Twitter, a figure that doubled the stake held by Elliott's management and more than Elliott and Silver combined. Musk has since had the most important say in the company. Twitter quickly decided to appoint Musk as a board member because the board feared he might seek to buy more shares and eventually take control of the entire company.
So the undeniable reality is that Musk's voice could have a major impact on Twitter's future direction.
Given the many concerns of Twitter employees, Musk and Twitter executives had planned to have a meeting with employees this week, and Musk also said that all employees could ask him any questions at the meeting to reassure everyone. But the latest news is that Musk has canceled the meeting.
But before that, Musk did not sit idle, but tweeted a lot of market controversy on Twitter. On April 9, for example, Musk said that the accounts with the most followers on Twitter (such as pop superstars Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber) were not active and posted very little content, so this raised the question: "Is Twitter dead?" ”
On April 10, Musk said that blue label users on Twitter (similar to VIP paid users) should have a certification flag, and these users should not see ads. If Twitter survives on advertising, the ability of outside companies (through Twitter advertising) to influence government policy will increase.
He questioned whether Twitter's headquarters base in San Francisco should be turned into a homeless shelter because Twitter now works from home and there is no one in the headquarters building.
He also noted that the prevalence of bots, especially "crypto fraud" accounts, is distorting Twitter's number of active users.
Previously, Musk launched a poll among his 81 million followers in which he asked Twitter users if they needed an edit button, and more than 4.4 million people responded, 74 percent of whom were in favor. Twitter then noted that, in fact, there was an edit button in the Twitter feature, and it had been a while.
It also shows that Musk can coerce the public to exert pressure on the company, and he can also use that pressure to get everyone to support his views on Twitter's board.
2
In response to Twitter's problems, Musk plans to make a major overhaul.
First of all, for those users on Twitter who have a particularly large number of fans but are not active (in fact, Twitter has worked hard to promote it before), add new incentives to make people tweet more frequently, including super followers, tips, news collections, product displays, etc.
These measures may not make absolute heads like Justin Bieber more active, because adding any more fans or a little income will no longer make sense to them, but these measures can stimulate the big V celebrities in the middle of the head, so that they can become more active, and if there are enough people, it may make Twitter feel alive again.
It's hard to say how effective product designs like Super Attention and Tipping really are, and there's no better solution to get more absolutely heads or high-profile users to get involved more often. If Musk had any ideas on this, there is no doubt that Twitter's management would be more than happy to hear from him.
Second, Twitter should add another check mark to paying users, an idea that has been raised many times, and that Twitter could verify users who prove their identity instead of using a blue checkmark in order to legitimize their existence. Being a paid option may not be the best way to go (as it may incentivize scammers), but there may be a variable metric based on proof of identity that lets users do a little more to confirm their details, reducing the impact of fake accounts and bots.
This brings us to Musk's final point, which is that there are too many bots and fake accounts in the platform, which affects the user experience. And this conclusion is likely to be true, according to previous estimates, about 15% of active Twitter may be bots, and in topics such as political disagreements, bot accounts even contribute up to 60% of the content.
It's a serious question, but at the same time, from a balanced standpoint, is it in Twitter's best interest to remove them?
According to Twitter's plan, it will need to add nearly 100 million more active users in the next year. Deleting 15% of its existing active user base would be equivalent to reducing its 32 million accounts, which will obviously affect its 100 million user growth strategy and is basically impossible to achieve.
But in the long run, maybe this positive approach would be better for Twitter? Remove bot accounts completely, even though this reduces the number of users, but that's the right thing to do. But it's unclear what penalties Twitter will face if it fails to meet its growth targets.
If you want to take a bot fake account, can Musk convince Twitter's board to change its strategic direction?
But the thing that can be determined is that what follows is definitely going to cause some parameter confusion and potentially reduce user engagement and activity, at least in the short term.
Such an approach may work in the long run, but will Twitter's other shareholders need to be patient in rebuilding this new platform? These are all issues that Twitter will have to weigh in the Musk era, and while they are likely to bring systemic improvements, they could also cause big trouble for Twitter's management in the upcoming quarterly report.
There are also censorship factors, as well as the potential impact of Musk's stance on Twitter and removing accounts that violate the rules.
Musk, for example, questioned Twitter's adherence to "free speech principles," pointing out that these principles are essential to democracy. For example, Musk opposes Twitter's blocking of the account of former US President Trump.
Interestingly, Paul Singer, the founder and billionaire investor in Elliott, is also a "Republican super-donor" who, while initially opposed Tov Trump's policies, ultimately supported The King.
So at first glance, at least two members of Twitter's board now seem to support a more "free speech" approach to twitter management.
This could spark huge conflicts in the future, especially as social platforms now have a tendency to take some responsibility for taking faster action against potentially harmful activities and speech that are likely to be eliminated before they spread on a larger scale. For example, Meta previously targeted TikTok, which is the reason for this. (Related reading: Meta's black PR, TikTok is a good target)
Social media platforms have spent a lot of time and effort to solve the problem of various right-wing conspiracy theories that are rife on the platform, but with little success, and the influence of these forces is increasing. Will Musk's free speech strategy set the matter back and allow so-called free but dangerous speech to regain the upper hand on Twitter? This also worries many people.
Of course, right-wingers rejoice at Musk's moves, and they eagerly look forward to Musk restoring the freedom of their past on Twitter, at least perceptually.
Twitter will definitely change anyway, but who knows if the end result is really a better experience or can do it better?
The only thing that is certain is that Twitter's stock price is afraid that it will be more volatile. Twitter's board is now in deep anxiety, trying to find a way to appease the unconventional majority shareholder, but with a clear heart and a hostile heart. Like Agravar said, [Musk] will be a distraction to the company for a long time.
参考资料：Elon Musk Raises MoreQuestions About Twitter's Approach, Which Could Lead to a Big Shake-Up
By Andrew Hutchinson