Elon Musk’s purchase of a plurality share in Twitter continues to get more and more interesting …
Elon Musk will join Twitter’s board of directors just a day after it was learned that he bought a 9% stake in the company — becoming the social media platform’s largest shareholder.
“I’m excited to share that we’re appointing @elonmusk to our board!” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted on Tuesday.
“Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.”
Agrawal added: “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 responded to Agrawal: “Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”
If Musk’s now-famous Twitter polls are any indication, he knows what changes the users want.
An SEC filing revealed on Monday that Musk — the world’s richest person with a fortune of more than $287 billion, according to Forbes — bought some 73.5 million shares of the company, which are worth an estimated $2.89 billion.
News of the acquisition — which makes Musk Twitter’s largest shareholder, ahead of Vanguard, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock.
That gives Musk north of 3 times as many shares as Twitter’s ex-CEO Jack Dorsey.
Speaking of which …
While Mark Zuckerberg holds special dual-class shares that effectively allow him to override Meta investors’ objections and do whatever he wants, Twitter only has one class of shares. That means Twitter shares held by founder Jack Dorsey give Dorsey the same voting power as shares held by Musk.
In a demonstration of the power that can be wielded by Twitter investors, Dorsey stepped down as Twitter’s CEO in 2021 following a heated activist campaign from shareholder Elliott Management. Elliott held around 4% of Twitter shares at the time — less than half of Musk’s current stake.
No wonder Parag is kissing up to him.
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This could be very interesting, or it could be much ado about nothing. I’m skeptical of a Randian billionaire coming to “save” us, but hey! I’ll enjoy the laughs at least.
By all indications, Musk is a Classical Liberal who’s honest in his belief that a free and open marketplace of ideas is essential to a healthy democracy. If all he does is relax the ban rules to 2016 levels, dissidents will win Twitter in a day.
“If all he does is relax the ban rules to 2016 levels . . .”
Is it in his power to do this without anyone standing in his way?
“. . . dissidents will win Twitter in a day.”
Which is why I don’t foresee it happening. But I hope I’m wrong.
If 4% can oust the founder, I would think 9% could be similarly influential, unless everyone else formed a coalition against him.
But then, management doesn’t necessarily have the ability to control the junior level censors in the day-to-day, anymore than the Imperial Japanese high command could always restrain the brainwashed junior officers.
So, yes and no?
This is what grifters like Teddy Spaghetti aren’t telling their readers. They’re correct to assess that Musk isn’t one of the “good guys,” but given our lack of power to radically shift the overton window, we should instead aim for a thousand tiny victories that build momentum off of each other—even when the first is achieved by a corporate classical liberal.
To paraphrase: destruction is easiser than restoration. While Satan can destroy things in one generation, ghettoing ourselves into alt fodder like Gab should only be done as a last resort.
Alexander and Brian
I look forward to Trump and Alex Jones reinstatement followed by a chorus of reeee! in the meantimeit’s wait and see.
xavier
Xavier,
You and Brian are far more optimistic as me! That would all be funny . . . but the chances of it happening are well below the 50 percent mark. I’d love to be wrong, but I am not holding my breath.
That said, like Brian mentioned, maybe Musk’s–and may Christ forgive me for uttering this phrase–Classical Liberalism will drive him to insist on reinstating some of these banned accounts. For that to happen, though, wouldn’t he need votes from other members of the board? He might be the largest single shareholder, but slightly over the 9 percent mark doesn’t give him overwhelming power, unless I’m misinformed about how corporate governance works (which is highly likely).
Even just shy of 10% is a very powerful lever in common stock, considering the ‘herding the cats’ factor. Getting the next top 3 or 4 principle stockholders to act in concert against Musk would not be an easy task, much less a few thousand small stakeholders. It doesn’t give him push button level authority, but it’s nothing to sneeze at. He’s also got enough juice to buy another 9% tomorrow.
The open free-to-join nature of Twitter is always going to work against it as long as a small number of mentally ill people can produce what looks like a large voice for free AND Twitter wants to virtue signal to larger external voices. Purging the Trust and Safety ranks would remove the one-way ban hammer for a time, but it won’t reduce the overall noise.
My view is that the best that might come from this is that the islands of more rational voices might be less threatened, and over time they could connect with other islands. We’ll see what comes of this.
When they offered to let him join the board, it was with the proviso that he would agree to not buy more than additional 6% of outstanding shares.
15% is a lot, but his influence under a deal like this is still limited. BlackRock, Eliot, Dorsey et al. are absolutely not above coordinating, though it would be less difficult for them if Musk had not bought his shares.
Not super optimistic either, but some good could come from it. Even if just the corporate capital infighting destroys the platform, that would be *something* better than now.
Alexander
I perfectly understand your skepticism. Is a healthy counterpoint to my optimism. Here’s my perspective, Elon has put them on the spot. If they oppose so much, they’re against free speech. Stay passive, they support free speech envisioned by him, as no banning unless thectweets clearly, explicitly break the law. So they can’t play around with ambiguity and shifting goalposts. The opponents have to commit to either choice. And face the consequences.
xavier
A besetting vice of the Right is getting bogged down in the details. We score a win, however, small, and get busy crunching the numbers to prove it’s really a loss.
It’s a cliché by now, but note that the Left never does this. They understand that victory lies on the moral level. Now ask yourselves this about Musk’s move: Is the Left energized or demoralized?
I’m cautiously optimistic. Just trying to figure out what is possible for Musk to do. But point noted.
That said, I’m enjoying the reeeing very much—quite possibly audible from space. Just the fact that he’s on the board is a win.
Fair.
The situation now as I understand it is that in order to join the board, Musk had to agree not to buy more than 14.9% of Twitter in total before 2024.
But that would still let him buy enough (10%) to be considered an active shareholder, which his people say he’ll do soon.
My guess is Musk is in it mostly for the entertainment value. It also provides a nice distraction for his enemies while he’s conquering the solar system. So he’ll be as disruptive as his shares and his classical liberal outlook will provide, but I don’t think he sees it as a hill to die on.
It’s basically a lark to him, as it should be. Twitter is a money pit that has no positive value except to destroy. Whether it dies tomorrow or goes on another decade is of no consequence to him. He probably just sees it as an opportunity to mess with people who hate him and gain some good PR with normies.
Doesn’t mean he still can’t do a lot of good with it, but I bet he’s looking at it as more of a playground than anything.
I disagree slightly. It is (and should be) a lark, but Twitter is not only a “money pit that has no positive value…” Financially, I absolutely agree: it can’t be made financially viable outside of a totalitarian/anti-human environment that even now the Clowns in charge of Clownworld have not managed to achieve. But there are some few social goods that have (and more that could have, if it was run less malevolently/incompetently) come from Twitter, albeit only through the the people running it not being able to prevent it (though they wish they could.)
Jonathan Greenblatt was on CNBC today clutching his pearls about Musk giving a platform to people who dissent from the Narrative. During his segment, they quoted Lefty screeching about Twitter being their most important information organ.
Dissidents have to appreciate how disruptive Musk’s play is to the Death Cult’s collective psyche. Imagine if George Soros bought 10% of Infowars.