Musk has more than 80 million followers on his Twitter account, so he sees Twitter as an important platform (Al Jazeera)
Laid Ayub - Al Jazeera
April 13, 2022
In a letter to the company, Twitter CEO Parag Agravar announced that Elon Musk would not join the company's board.
Agravar had said last week that Musk would be appointed to the company's board after buying a 9.2 percent stake in the company, but his latest statement showed Musk had decided not to take the role.
Agravar wrote in a statement, "We announced on Tuesday that Elon Musk will be appointed to the board, but this is subject to background checks and formal acceptance procedures. The process for appointing Musk to the board was originally scheduled to be officially announced on April 9, but Elon Musk said that morning that he would not join the board. I think it's a better arrangement. We will always respect the opinions of our shareholders, whether they are members of the Company's Board of Directors or not. Elon Musk is our largest shareholder, and we will continue to be open to his contributions. ”
The CEO did not say whether Musk gave specific reasons for changing the idea of the new post.
Elon Musk with control over Twitter
Under Twitter's financial regulations, Elon Musk's joining Twitter's board of directors would prevent Musk from owning more than 14.9 percent of the company's total, including securities, swaps or hedging transactions. Especially after Musk's recent stock purchase, his shares within the company have a market capitalization of $2.89 billion.
Since Musk's stake in Twitter was disclosed, the TESLA and "SpaceX" CEO has been publicly presenting his ideas to the company on his favorite Twitter social platform account.
Musk released a poll on whether Twitter should come with an "edit button" to ensure that the company does add to the long-awaited feature.
In addition, he posted many other suggestions on his Twitter account, such as adding verification tokens through a paid "Twitter Blue" service or transforming the company's headquarters in San Francisco into a shelter for displaced people — "because there are no staff in it."
These suggestions give us insight into elon Musk's many ideas as a majority shareholder of Twitter and his ability to make suggestions and even criticize him in public and on the platform.
Threaten to compete and then buy shares
Days after threatening to create a competitive social platform, Elon Musk bought a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, a strange move that raises questions about the purpose behind him.
Musk, a heavy user of Twitter, criticized the social media platform and its policies last month. At the time, he tweeted that he was "seriously considering" launching an entirely new social media platform because Twitter was undermining democracy by not abiding by the principles of free speech.
Just a day ago, Musk posted a poll on Twitter asking if users thought Twitter adhered to the principles of free speech, and more than 70 percent of the people surveyed gave a negative answer.
Just a lesson or a Trojan horse?
Musk seems to have learned from former U.S. President Donald Trump. Mr. Trump learned his lesson there — early last year, days after Mr. Trump lost the election, his Twitter account was permanently deleted by the platform after the capitol was attacked.
Twitter pointed out at the time that the reason for Trump's deletion was that the tweets he posted violated the platform's policy against promoting violence and could push people to repeat the attack on Capitol Hill.
When Trump was banned, he already had more than 88 million followers on Twitter. Since then, Trump has tried to create a platform that can compete with Twitter and announced his own social networking platform, "TRUTH Social", but the platform encountered great difficulties when it launched, and it seems that it did not meet Trump's expectations to restore his fan base and gain the status he wants on the social network.
So Elon Musk's move to buy a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter may just be a plan he's to learn from Trump's lessons, as he finds that buying Twitter's largest stake could be a Trojan horse and a prelude to a perfect acquisition of the world's most famous social media platform.
There's a famous saying in business: "If you can't beat them, buy them." ”
But a platform the size of Twitter can't be swallowed in one gulp, even for the world's richest man and business tycoon like Musk, so he may not seek to own the platform, but only to protect his position on the platform from Trump-like results.
While the acquisition is a possible scenario, and his move to relinquish his seat on the board reinforces that, under the company's regulations, holding that position would prevent him from owning more than 14 percent of the company's shares, at which point he would not be able to do the acquisition, which he was able to do without joining the company's board if he had enough support from the wealthy and powerful who were dissatisfied with the social media, especially after recent rumors. Musk could restore Trump's accounts on the platform. While Musk is unlikely to actually take this step, it will still be a trump card in his hand.
Trump has created a social platform that wants to compete with Twitter, but faces great difficulties
Private media center
Elon Musk, who has more than 80 million followers on Twitter, often manages to change the public's perception of many things, including cryptocurrencies and even other general topics, and that's why Twitter will become his private media channel, in which case he doesn't need to appear on other media channels at all, but only needs to send a tweet and get major institutions to scramble to reprint it.
In the past, these things have caused resentment among Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and the company's management, and as a result, they decided to review the information Musk posted on his account, angering the billionaire and prompting him to launch a vote on Twitter's restriction on free speech in March.
Perhaps Musk's intention in buying a large number of shares was to consolidate his position as a user with the right to express his opinions freely, and the fact that he gave up his seat on the company's board of directors as the company's largest investor further strengthens this analysis.
Twitter asks its board members not to tweet about the company's policies, so once Musk becomes a board member of the company, he won't be free to chase his hobby of criticizing Twitter's policies.
The most likely scenario
Some experts pointed out on the 11th that Musk may have violated national security laws when buying more shares in Twitter. According to the Washington Post, experts say the acquisition may have violated federal law.
Experts point out that Musk has been slow to inform the SEC of the fact that he has purchased more than 5 percent, in fact, he reached that percentage on March 14, but still no one knew about the deal for 11 days since.
One of the most likely dangerous scenarios is for Musk to buy stock at a low price and then profit from the rise in the stock price after announcing that the acquisition process could make him $156 million in profits. When Musk, 50, submitted a statement on the process, the social media platform's stock price rose 30 percent in response.
But even if there is a violation, Musk will receive a fine of less than $1 million at most, which will be far less than his profit.
So, if we string these threads together, we will find that Musk achieved the results he wanted in the process of buying stocks and abandoning his role on the company's board of directors. He made a fortune (valued at $156 million) in two weeks, and he immunized himself to the social platform to avoid being silenced like Trump, in addition to retaining his freedom to criticize Twitter's management and policies without any restrictions by forgoing his board membership, and was able to buy more shares of the company in the future, and possibly even own the "Blue Bird" (referring to the Twitter platform) in the future.
It's still impossible to say what the American billionaire thinks and what his future plans for Twitter are, but it's safe to say that now, he can tweet more freely without fear of being banned by Twitter, as his share of the platform has surpassed that of its founders.
Source : Al Jazeera Chinese