The month of April 2022 will enter and will remain in the annals of tech.
It will be remembered as the time when the world's richest man, Elon Musk, launched a hostile $43 billion bid at $54.20 a share to buy the microblogging website Twitter (TWTR) from the name of the defense of free speech.
The platform is considered with other social networks as opinion makers
Musk and Jack Dorsey, the founder of this same Twitter, then formed a kind of informal alliance to go after the board of directors of Twitter because it shows some resistance towards Tesla CEO's bid.
The serial entrepreneurs have thus posed as anti-systems attacking a system that they consider to be faulty, even destructive of the value of companies. Dorsey, for example, endorsed a post quoting venture capitalist Fred Destin that paints board of directors in Silicon Valley unfavorably.
'A Bad Board Will Kill A Company Every Time'
"Fred Destin: 'What I do know for sure is that this old Silicon Valley proverb is grounded in age-old wisdom that still applies today: Good boards don’t create good companies, but a bad board will kill a company every time,'" a Twitter user posted.
"Big facts," Dorsey commented.
Since the billionaire, who left his position as CEO of Twitter in November as well as his seat as a member of the board of directors, seems to be against anything he sees that appears to be an obstacle to free speech or against the independence of social media platforms.
Billionaire Marc Benioff has just had the bitter experience of it. Benioff is the founder, chairman and co-CEO of Salesforce.com (CRM) whose tower, visible from afar, towers over San Francisco. Founded in 1999, Salesforce is a company specializing in CRM (Customer Relationship Management). It offers its solutions in the form of software as a cloud service (SaaS).
In addition to Salesforce.com, Benioff and his wife Lynne are the owners of the famous Time magazine, that they bought in 2018 for $190 million. Time named Elon Musk, Dorsey's buddy, Time Person of the Year 2021 last December.
'You Bought This Magazine Too?'
Everything was going well until Benioff posted a message following a magazine that dedicated the cover to him.
"Capitalism as we have known it is dead & the obsession that we have with maximizing profits for shareholders alone has led to incredible inequality & a planetary emergency," Benioff posted on Twitter the cover of the magazine in question. "When we serve all stakeholders, business is the greatest platform for change. ❤️"
In view of the text accompanying the photo, the magazine presents Benioff as an agent of change, and of positive change.
The magazine presents Benioff as an agent of change, and of positive change.
It is unclear whether Benioff was speaking in general or he was referring to a specific shareholder. In any case, Dorsey didn't hesitate to comment. And he ain't been kind to his billionaire peer.
"You bought this magazine too?" the CEO of fintech Block (SQ), formerly Square, has asked. This mocking question clearly seems like a thinly veiled criticism of Benioff. Dorsey seems suspicious of the magazine's praise for the entrepreneur, one of the great figures of Silicon Valley.
But Benioff made the choice not to play Dorsey's game, which would have consisted of attacking or even defending himself. The billionaire preferred to respond by suggesting that Dorsey subscribe to Time.
"Nope, but @jack can I get you a subscription to TIME? 😇" in doing so, he posted the cover of Time with Musk. It seems like an indirect and subtle way, however, of telling Dorsey that he does not influence magazines, the proof being that Time chose Dorsey's good friend as Person of the Year 2021.
"nah I'm good man," Dorsey clapped back.
'So Much to Say'
Finally, when CNBC anchor Scott Wapner returns to Dorsey's criticism of Twitter's board, the latter implies that there is so much dirty laundry to wash but that he cannot do it in public maybe because his fiduciary duty does not allow it.
"Serious question for @jack. If you think the @twitter Board is/was so dysfunctional and kept the company from being great as you imply either through your own tweets or replies to others why didn’t you do anything about it when you ran the company for several years?" Scott Wapner asked.
"so much to say…but nothing that can be said," Dorsey responded.
Given this evasive response it's more than likely that Dorsey has only just begun to shake up Silicon Valley. The sequel is sure to come soon.
