Elon Musk, who spent the weekend tweeting about how Twitter is dead, has decided not to take his seat on the social media site’s board of directors.
The Tesla CEO was named to the board last week after snapping up $3 billion worth of stock, making him the company’s largest stakeholder.
But, according to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, the appointment was contingent on “contingent on a background check and formal acceptance.” On Saturday, the day his term was supposed to start, Musk backed out.
“We were excited to collaborate and clear about the risks,” Agrawal said in a statement just before midnight Sunday. “We also believed that having Elon as a fiduciary of the company where he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders was the best path forward.”
Musk’s decision, Agrawal said, is “for the best.”
“We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not,” he said Sunday. “Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.”
Musk’s board seat would have banned him from buying more than 14.9% of Twitter’s common stock for the duration of his tenure, plus 90 days after, according to an SEC filing Tuesday. It’s unclear if any such agreement now stands.
A spokesperson for Twitter declined to comment when reached by the Daily News Monday.
The 50-year-old entrepreneur has not publicly commented on his decision, but did spend Saturday online offering up suggestions, many of which he has since deleted, including dropping the “w” from “Twitter” and turning its San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter “since no one shows up anyway.”
“Most of these ‘top’ accounts tweet rarely and post very little content. Is Twitter dying?” he wrote with a list of most-followed accounts that included former president Barack Obama, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna and Taylor Swift.
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