Twitter (TWTR) shares are down nearly 5% on news that Elon Musk has abandoned his plan to
join the company’s board of directors.
On April 5, Musk and Twitter announced he would be joining Twitter’s board. A day earlier, the
Tesla (TSLA) chief executive disclosed via financial filings that he’s Twitter’s biggest
shareholder, holding a 9.2% stake in the firm.
Musk was scheduled to be appointed to Twitter’s board of directors on Saturday (April 9), but
the world’s richest man informed the company on the day that he would not, in fact, be taking
the board seat.
“Elon has decided not to join our board,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal wrote on Twitter Sunday
(April 10).
In the note, Agrawal said that Musk remains the largest shareholder of Twitter, and the
company will remain open to his input.
On April 4, after Musk’s stake was revealed, Twitter’s stock had its best day since the
company’s market debut in 2013, rising more than 27% in one trading session.
Over the weekend, without revealing that he had turned down the board seat at Twitter, Musk
posted several ideas to transform the social media company and its products.
One of the suggestions was a joke in which Musk asked people to vote on whether Twitter
should drop the “w” from its name. Musk also floated the idea of letting Twitter Blue subscribers
pay with Dogecoin (DOGE) and turning Twitter’s San Francisco head office into a homeless
shelter.
Twitter stock finished trading last Friday (April 8) at $46.23 U.S. a share, up 8% year to date.