Twitter Names Elon Musk to Board

Elon Musk is joining Twitter’s board of directors, in a deal coming after the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX acquired a 9.2% stake in the social-media network to become its largest single shareholder.

Under the agreement, Musk is prohibited from amassing more than 14.9% of Twitter’s stock as long as he remains a director on the board — forestalling the possibility for at least the next two years that the mega-billionaire, who currently has a net worth of more than $300 billion, will mount an effort to take over the company.

In a tweet, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal wrote, “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.” Agrawal continued, “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!

Musk replied to Agrawal’s tweet with this: “Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”

Musk has publicly shared a few thoughts about Twitter.

Two weeks ago, the celebrity tech executive suggested in a Twitter poll that the service, which “serves as the de facto public town square” is “failing to adhere to free speech principles” — and that this “fundamentally undermines democracy.” Essentially, he asked his Twitter followers if they agreed.

On Monday evening, after the disclosure of Musk’s 9.2% stake in Twitter, he again queried his 80 million followers, this time about whether they want the ability to edit Twitter messages after they’ve been posted — a feature long desired by many Twitter users. Of the nearly 3 million votes as of this writing, 73.5% were cast in favor of the idea (which Musk playfully labeled as “yse”).