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National
Sounak Mukhopadhyay

Elon Musk, Parag Agrawal bonded over engineering before Twitter deal

Elon Musk exchanged text messages with Parag Agrawal.

Musk told Agrawal that he had “a ton of ideas" but he thought he was “pushing too hard". Musk texted Agrawal, “I just want Twitter to be maximum amazing."

Also Read: Elon Musk makes mother sleep in garage - here’s why

It apparently happened during the spring until the Tesla CEO tweeted in April: “Is Twitter dying?"

Agrawal questioned Musk about his public criticism of Twitter, calling the remarks disruptive and damaging to the business. Musk sharply responded that joining the board would be a “waste of time". He said he would “make an offer to take Twitter private". This conversation between Musk and Agrawal apparently soured the relationship between the two.

After Musk’s “Twitter is dying" tweet, he said he would not be joining the board after all. Later, Twitter disclosed in a regulatory filing that Musk had proposed paying $44 billion to acquire Twitter outright. After initially attempting to prevent the hostile takeover, Twitter ultimately decided to accept the offer.

Also Read: What if Elon Musk's Indian ‘friend’ settles down on Mars? His parents comment

Additionally, talks between Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey are included in the text message archive. Musk's participation was welcomed by Dorsey, who praised him and said that Agrawal was an "incredible engineer" even though the board was "terrible".

Agrawal asked Musk to treat him “like an engineer" instead of a CEO as they worked through technical questions together. At one point, Musk wrote that he loved the conversations.

Also Read: 5-hour rule: The secret sauce to success for Elon Musk, Bill Gates

The redacted text messages were submitted in court by Musk's attorneys after disputing a Twitter allegation that the messages couldn't be made public because they contained sensitive information Several of those include extensive redactions and are fully obscured. Contrarily, the documents containing the texts by Musk and Agrawal were not.

(With agency inputs)

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