Elon Musk now has a seat at Twitter’s table. The company announced Tuesday it will appoint the world’s richest man to its board, one day after the world learned Musk bought 9.2% of the social media company.
The stock purchase makes Musk, who’s often critical of Twitter, the company’s largest shareholder.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted, “He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need on Twitter, and in the boardroom.”
Musk replied that he’s looking forward to making “significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”
Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022
The board seat does come with some handcuffs, notably capping Musk, as an individual or member of a group, from owning more than 14.9% of Twitter while he serves the board and for 90 days after. His term will expire in two years.
Still, the seat gives the Tesla and SpaceX founder a lot of influence over a company he accuses of undermining democracy.
Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.
What should be done? https://t.co/aPS9ycji37
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2022
But is free speech really Musk’s first order of business? It looks like he has an edit button in his sights after asking his 80 million Twitter followers if they want one Monday night. By midday Tuesday, the poll had more than 3.5 million voters, with 73% voting yes, or “yse.” Musk purposely misspelled yes and no.
Do you want an edit button?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022
Twitter, for its part, had tweeted, “we are working on an edit button,” before all of the Musk news erupted, but the tweet was sent on April Fools’ Day and believed to be a joke.