Elon Musk joins Twitter board after buying huge stake in company

‘He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service,’ says CEO

Elon Musk Twitter (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Elon Musk will join the board of Twitter, its chief executive announced on Tuesday, a day after the Telsa CEO bought a stake of almost 10 per cent in the social media platform.

Mr Musk indicated “significant improvements” ahead for Twitter, but not what they might be.

It comes a day after he became the company’s biggest individual shareholder, sending the price of shares soaring.

Now Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s relatively new chief executive, said that he would be working with the company as part of its board.

“I’m excited to share that we’re appointing [Elon Musk] to our board! Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board,” Mr Agrawal posted on the site.

“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!”

Mr Musk replied almost immediately to the tweet.

“Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!” he wrote.

The day before, Mr Musk and Mr Agrawal had indicated what some of those changes might be. Mr Musk had shared a poll on his Twitter asking whether his followers “want an edit button”.

Mr Agrawal quoted the tweet and suggested the changes could be on their way.

“The consequences of this poll will be important,” he wrote. “Please vote carefully.”

Voting is still open, but almost 75 per cent of respondents have voted that there should be such a button.

Mr Musk has also indicated other priorities for the platform. He has suggested that the site is not doing enough to preserve free speech, and called the array of spambots on Twitter its “single most annoying problem”.