Recently we confirmed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a purchase of about 9.2% of Twitter shares. Elon Musk is now the owner of 73,486,938 Twitter shares worth about $2.89 billion. The acquisition automatically makes him the biggest outside shareholder in the social media stock. Although Elon Musk is known for raising quite controversial topics, influencing cryptocurrencies and his wars on the social platform, Twitter says Musk won’t be given any special treatment on the platform despite earning a seat on the company’s board of directors.
According to a statement by a representative of Twitter Adrian Zamora, the platform is ultimately “committed to impartiality in the development and enforcement of its policies and rules.” Zamora explains that the same Twitter rules that apply to everyone will be applied to Musk as well. In other words, if the need arises Musk can be subjected to a Twitter ban or suspension.
Zamora further explains that though the board members are unable to make decisions on Twitter’s policies, however, their influence counts and plays a large part in providing guidance and feedback. Zamora says “Our policy decisions are not determined by the Board or shareholders, as always our Board plays an important advisory and feedback role across the entirety of our service. Our day to day operations and decisions are made by Twitter management and employees.”
Of course, as a Board member, Musk will have a say on major aspects of the micro-blogging platform. Important aspects such as mergers and overseeing how business is performing are being approved by Board members, however, that may not include “day to day” decision-making.
Just after the announcement of Musk’s 9.2 per cent stake in the Micro-blogging platform which took place earlier in the week, the platform’s CEO Parag Agrawal made a confirmation that Musk would serve on the company’s board as a Class II director until the year 2024.
Now that Musk has tweeted his way into becoming the largest individual Twitter shareholder, many wonder about the real impact Musk may have on decisions for the platform going forward — especially given the fact that Musk is largely critical of the platform and can steer up a lot of controversies. In March, Musk reportedly held a poll on the platform to seek followers’ opinions on if Twitter “rigorously adheres” to the principle of free speech. The most recent which happened on Monday, Musk again polled Twitter followers on whether they think Twitter deserve an “edit” button.
Olagoke Ajibola is a creative writer and content producer with an eye for details and excellence. He has a demonstrated history of telling stories for TV, Film and Online. Aside from being fascinated by the power of imagination, his other interest are travel, sport, reading and meeting people.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
