Tesla CEO Elon Musk No Longer Joining Twitter Board

Tesla CEO Elon Musk will no longer be joining the Board of Twitter, according to a statement published earlier today by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. 

“Elon’s appointment to the Board was to become officially effective April 9, but Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the Board,” Agrawal said in a statement. 

“I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input,” Agrawal added. 

Today’s news represents a complete turnaround from last week’s announcement on April 5, when Agrawal was “excited to share that [Twitter is] appointing Elon Musk to our Board.” 

Musk—who has not personally announced the u-turn—said at the time that he was “looking forward to working with Parag and Twitter Board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months.” 

Twitter and Elon Musk

Just days before Musk was initially announced as Twitter’s newest Board member, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO purchased a 9.2% stake in the social media platform. 

Per an SEC filing, Musk purchased 73,486,938 shares of common stock with TWTR trading at $39.31, bringing his total share purchase to over $2.8 billion. 

That purchase, in turn, came hot off the heels of a survey he conducted—on Twitter—about Twitter’s commitment to the principle of free speech. 

“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” he asked via a Twitter survey. 

Over two million votes were cast, with 70% of respondents believing that Twitter did not adhere to the principles of free speech. 

Earlier this week, when asked to improve Twitter’s verification system, Musk also described cryptocurrency scam bots as the “single most annoying problem on Twitter.” 

On the subject of Twitter verification, Musk suggested that everyone who signs up for Twitter Blue—a $3 monthly subscription—“should get an authentication mark.” He later added that it could even be an option to pay in Dogecoin. 

Despite Musk’s most recent Twitter speculation around Dogecoin, the famous meme cryptocurrency has barely moved, registering at $0.14 today—the same price as on the day Musk’s Twitter stake was announced.