Musk to sit on Twitter’s top table

Having bought a 9.2% stake in the social media site, Musk will now have a seat on its board of directors.   

Buying power 

You’d think topping Forbes’ billionaires list would be enough for Elon Musk’s ego. But having beaten back Jeff Bezos to claim the crown, he’s out for more. Having only recently announced a huge stake in Twitter, it looks like Musk has bought his way to the boardroom – and as the largest stakeholder in the company, you can bet his opinions will carry some weight.  

While we haven’t yet got the lowdown on Musk’s intentions, he’s clearly excited to get started. He responded to the announcement tweet of Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO, saying he was “Looking forward to working […] to make significant improvements to Twitter in (sic) coming months!”  

Good for stock, but in for a shock  

It’s not hard to see the positives of the world’s richest man investing in Twitter. Its stock rallied as much as 26% after the purchase was revealed, so many at the top table will be welcoming Musk with open arms.  

However, his open criticism of Twitter – and particularly his rants on its “failure of adhering to free speech principles” – is cause for concern for the average user, and probably for former CEO and founder, Jack Dorsey. The richest man in the world is no stranger to controversy and has always been keen to offer his opinions on hot topics like gender pronouns and pandemic lockdowns. Let’s just hope that his influence on Twitter won’t see trolls running riot.