Twitter (TWTR) shares moved higher Monday after the social media group scrapped an agreement to bring Tesla (TSLA) CEO and billionaire investor Elon Musk onto its board of directors.
Musk, who unveiled a 9.1% stake in the micro-blogging website last week, was due to assume his seat on the board Saturday and had spoken publicly of his desire to bring "significant improvements" to the company. That promise has lead to reports of anxious employees at the group's San Francisco headquarters, as well as a move by CEO Parag Agrawal to arrange a so-called 'Ask Me Anything' session with the newest board member.
Agrawal, however, said late Sunday that Musk has "declined to join our board" following what he called "many discussions", but declined to elaborate in terms of how the decision was taken.
"We believe the Twitter Board and Musk could not come to an agreement around Musk's communications with the public," said Webush analyst Dan Ives. "This now goes from a Cinderella story with Musk joining the Twitter Board and keeping his stake under 14.9% to likely a "Game of Thrones" battle in the months ahead."
Twitter shares were marked 2.8% higher in early Monday trading to change hands at $47.53 each.
The move could mean Musk, whose stake in Twitter could have only risen to 14.9% were to he take a board seat, can either use some of his vast $300 billion fortune to take Twitter, currently valued at $37 billion, private or simply press from changes as the group's single-largest shareholder.
Musk's relationship with Twitter -- which he called a "war zone" during his 60 Minutes interview in 2018 -- remains complicated, in that he is both a prolific user of the site as well as one of its more vocal critics.
Late last month, Musk said he was giving 'serious thought" to starting his own social media company, and accused Twitter of "failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy" given that the site "serves as the de facto public town square."
