Twitter jumps 10% after Elon Musk is appointed to its board of directors, agrees to limit stake to 14.9%
- Twitter stock jumped 10% on Tuesday after Elon Musk was appointed to its board of directors.
- Tuesday's gains in Twitter stock were an extension from Monday's 27% surge after Musk disclosed a 9% stake in the social media company.
- In connection with his board appointment, Musk has agreed to limit his Twitter stake to 14.9%.
Twitter stock jumped 10% on Tuesday after the social media company appointed Elon Musk to its board of directors.
Musk disclosed a passive 9.2% stake in Twitter on Monday, which helped send the shares soaring 27% in Monday trades. In his agreement to join Twitter's board of directors, Musk also agreed to limit his Twitter stake to 14.9% of the company, according to an SEC filing.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said, "I'm excited to share that we're appointing @elonmusk to our board! Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board. He's both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need on @Twitter, and in the boardroom, to make us stronger in the long-term. Welcome Elon!"
In response to Agrawal, Musk said, "Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!"
One potential change to Twitter that's top of mind for Musk is enabling an edit button, a long sought-after feature by users to be able to edit tweets after publishing them to fix typos. Musk tweeted a poll Monday evening on the subject, and 74% of nearly 3 million votes said they favored an edit button.
But much of Musk's critique of Twitter in recent weeks and months has been the censorship of certain accounts that allegedly violated Twitter's policies. Twitter is viewed as an online public square by many, so the censorship of certain accounts often receives much criticism. One such account that has been suspended is of former President Donald Trump, though he now favors issuing press releases instead of tweets.
Twitter stock is up 35% since the start of the week. Since it went public in 2013, Twitter stock is up only 11%. That's a far cry from its social media peers like SnapChat and Meta Platforms, which are up 60% and 392% over the same time period, respectively.