(FreedomBeacon.com)- This weekend, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk turned down the offer to sit on Twitter’s board of directors.
Last week, Musk purchased a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, prompting many to believe the Tesla CEO was planning to change Twitter from the inside.
Musk’s appointment to the board was supposed to be formalized on Saturday, but he informed the company that morning that he would not be joining. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced Musk’s decision in a tweet on Monday, sharing the statement he sent to Twitter employees.
In closing his statement, Agrawal said that as Twitter’s biggest shareholder, Musk’s input was valuable and the company would be “open to his input.”
As a condition of joining the board, Twitter would have limited the percentage of shares Musk could own in the company. This has led some to suspect Musk’s decision not to join the board is a strategic one.
When Agrawal announced Musk’s decision on Monday, the Tesla CEO responded to Agarawal’s announcement by tweeting a giggling emoji.
A longtime critic of Twitter’s censorship of opposing views, Musk has argued for the social media company, which he has described as the “de facto public town square,” to embrace and defend free speech.
This might explain why the initial news of Musk’s invitation to join the board was met with outrage from Twitter employees. They were fearful that Elon Musk’s involvement may bring an end to their ideologically-driven censorship practices.
Just days before he secured 9.2 percent of Twitter’s shares, Musk publicly criticized the company for “failing to adhere to free speech principles” which he argued, “fundamentally undermines democracy.”
In another tweet, Musk presented a poll asking Twitter users if they believe Twitter “rigorously adheres” to the principle of free speech. Over 70 percent of the 2 million voters responded “No.”
Could Musk’s decision not to join the board signal that the billionaire CEO is preparing a hostile takeover of the social media company? This is what some believe. Free of any limits on how many shares he can buy now that he won’t be on the board, Musk can gobble up as much of the company as he wants and transform it into the free speech platform he thinks Twitter should be.
