New battle lines are likely to form in top management as newly appointed Tesla Board of Directors (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc Report Chief Executive Elon Musk and co-founder and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey battle for competing visions of how may look like Twitter in the future. Musk revealed on April 4 that he bought nearly 73.5 million shares of the social networking company for a 9.2% stake. A day later, the San Francisco-based company said it would appoint the billionaire CEO to its board of directors as a second-class executive with a term ending at Twitter’s annual meeting in 2024. Musk made a more detailed financial revelation on April 5 to clarify that he is an active investor, which means he plans to play a key role in shaping the platform. This was a complete reversal of his original attitude, in which he would be a passive investor. Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty / Shutterstock / TS
How can Musk help Twitter?
Musk is entering Twitter in a period of declining user growth and a total of 217 million active users daily, far behind technology competitors such as Meta (FB) – Get Meta Platforms Inc. Class A Report (1.93 billion active people daily), Snapchat (SNAP) – Get a Class A Report from Snap, Inc. (319 million daily active users) and TikTok (1 billion users as of September 2021) among others. Recent Twitter innovations have not clicked on its audience, either. Last year it discontinued Fleets and Periscope live streaming with disappearing stories, following a decline in user loyalty. Experts remain divided over whether the world’s richest man, with a fortune of $ 276 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, invests in Twitter to potentially boost his influence on the social media platform, or simply as a snap. investment. Musk’s recent tweets show he’s ready to make changes, possibly starting with an edit button, a long-standing requirement from Twitter users dating back to 2016. The poll received over four million votes at the time this story was published. And the majority of users with 73.6% voted in favor of the edit button, the most requested feature of Twitter. Twitter has officially confirmed that it is working on an edit button just one day after Musk asked about its 80.7 million followers, saying it had been in the works since last year. With his new title, Musk could do it so that Twitter no longer has too much censorship, get an edit button and the platform changes its algorithm to make it accessible, that is, open source, giving users a lot of more power. However, the fuss over a full hostile takeover is losing some traction, as Musk can not hold more than 14.9% in the company for the next two years, according to the latest Twitter account in the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Musk’s joining Twitter’s board is a key message that Twitter is embracing Musk despite a more hostile situation,” Ives wrote on Twitter, whose commentary has been widely followed since the news broke. Another Wall Street expert said Musk believed he could make Twitter a better product at a time when users have been frustrated by the social media platform’s inability to respond to change. “The growth of their users has slowed down a lot in the face of product changes that are supposed to boost it. Old users are not using the product enough,” Oppenheimer’s CEO Jason Helfstein said in a telephone interview with TheStreet. Scroll to continue “He [Musk] “He made this personal investment because he believes Twitter is an undervalued asset and his involvement would make the product better and make the stock go up,” Helfstein said. Musk has some really strong followers among ordinary retail investors, and if these last few days are indicative, then Wall Street has taken a round of Twitter shares. Its share price has risen almost 30% since closing on Friday last week.
Will everyone fight for freedom of speech?
Musk, who claims to be a dictator of free speech, “thinks that Twitter is using excessive censorship and restricting content that it deems acceptable,” Helfstein said. But how much freedom of speech should be allowed on the platform could be where Dorsey, Musk and CEO Agrawal disagree, said TheStreet Smarts Senior Editor Todd Campbell. “For example, should speech be tempered to protect itself from misinformation or hatred? And if so, how strictly?” he said. “In the past, Musk’s apparent proposal suggested an ‘all-inclusive’ approach reminiscent of town square, while Agrawal ostensibly favored a kind of elaborate freedom of speech. restrict speech on the platform., it will be interesting to see if freedom of speech is a flashpoint for the Board or if these differences are excessive “. Getty / TS
The new Twitter of Team Musk and Dorsey
While Musk now officially owns a larger Twitter account than Dorsey (Dorsey’s 2.25%), the two billionaires have more in common as entrepreneurs than one might think. Dorsey and Musk are both evangelists for cryptocurrencies, so they could find common ground to work together, experts suggest. “Both are bullish on blockchain and decentralization, and they could probably agree to switch to a decentralized content model on the platform,” Helfstien said. Musk, who is also the CEO of SpaceX, joins Twitter’s board as a “passionate loyal and outspoken critic.” And it’s clear that Dorsey likes that. He considered Musk a role model for the platform he founded, and Musk voiced support for Dorsey when hedge fund activist Elliott Management tried to oust Dorsey from the CEO in March 2020. TheStreet’s Campbell said his entry could lead to a reversal of the company’s board. “If Musk has strong (and I think he has) strong views on how to position Twitter better for future growth, then what if Twitter’s board resists its vision?” said Campbell. “There’s a good chance that Musk’s ideas for improving the platform will shake up the status quo. “Musk’s vision. Will Musk be a diplomat? I could see the composition of the board change significantly from here,” Campbell said. The current Twitter board consists of 11 members, including CEO Agarwal, Dorsey, Chairman of the Independent Board Bret Taylor, also Co-CEO of Salesforce (CRM) – Get salesforce.com, inc. Report, Sliver Lake CEO Egon Druban, former Twitter president Omid Kordestani among others. It remains to be seen what direction Musk is likely to take on the social media platform, but it could – in many ways – be exactly what Twitter needs right now.
