Elon Musk won’t join Twitter’s board of directors after all

Elon Musk will no longer join Twitter’s board of directors, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal revealed in a tweet. Last week, it was reported that Musk would join as a Class II director following his purchase of 9.2 percent of the company’s shares, but he has now decided against the move. 

“We announced on Tuesday that Elon would be appointed to the Board contingent on a background check and formal acceptance,” said Agrawal. “Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board. I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.”

Musk’s Twitter stock purchase was worth $2.89 billion when it was revealed by the SEC, but some recent reports questioned whether he revealed his stake early enough. Joining the board would have restricted Musk’s purchases to 14.9 percent of common stock during his tenure and for 90 days afterward. 

It’s not clear why Musk decided not to join Twitter’s board, especially since he seemed to be full of ideas on how to change the social media network. Most recently, he tweeted out the idea of giving verification checkmarks to paid Twitter Blue subscribers and suggested that Twitter convert its San Francisco office to a homeless shelter since “no-one shows up anyway.” He also ran a poll asking users if Twitter should add an edit button, and just a day later, the company confirmed it would do just that. 

Musk also recently tweeted a photo of himself smoking cannabis on the Joe Rogan podcast on Spotify in 2018, stating the next board meeting was “going to be lit.” When his joining the board appeared imminent, Agrawal offered to address any employee concerns in a Q&A session with Musk. Musk appears to have removed some of his Twitter-related tweets, like the poll and homeless shelter ones, over the last few hours.