Elon Musk says he expects to make 'significant' changes to Twitter now that he's joining the company's board
- Elon Musk said he would enact "significant" changes to Twitter now that he's on the board.
- Twitter said Musk, who owns a 9.2% stake, will join the board until 2024.
Elon Musk is planning to enact "significant" changes to Twitter now that he's a member of the company's board.
Twitter announced Tuesday that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO will join its board of directors until at least 2024. The appointment comes after Musk earlier in the week disclosed a 9.2% stake, worth more than $3 billion, making him the company's largest shareholder.
Musk tweeted Tuesday that he's looking forward to working with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and Twitter's board "to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!"
Agrawal said that it became clear during conversations with Musk in recent weeks that he would bring "great value" to the board.
While Musk didn't specify what changes he's hoping to make at Twitter, he's an avid user who has never shied away from sharing his views about the platform and its leadership, which clearly hasn't gone unnoticed at Twitter.
A self-described "free speech absolutist," Musk has criticized the platform's approach to speech, tweeting that the company has failed to "adhere to free speech principles" and undermined democracy. He said he was considering building his own social media platform that prioritizes freedom of speech.
While Musk frequently lavished praise on former CEO Jack Dorsey, he recently posted a meme comparing Agrawal to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. And on Monday, he posted a poll asking users whether they'd like a button that would allow them to edit tweets — a hot-button issue among Twitter users — and wrote that spam bots hawking cryptocurrency are "the single most annoying problem on Twitter."
But even before Twitter announced Musk's board seat, Wall Street analysts were predicting that the outspoken exec would attempt to meddle in the company's strategy and that it could lead to tension with Agrawal.
"It remains to be seen exactly what intentions Elon has for the platform," Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik wrote. "... but we imagine this story will play out in Musk's tweets."