“Elon’s appointment to the board was due to take effect on 9/4, but Elon announced the same morning that he would no longer be a member of the board,” Agrawal tweeted. “I believe this is for the best. We have and will always appreciate the contribution of our shareholders whether he is on our board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his contribution.” A Twitter spokesman confirmed that Musk had decided not to join the Twitter board, citing Agrawal’s statement. Musk recently revealed that he had bought more than 9% of Twitter shares, making him the company’s largest shareholder. Under the agreement to include Musk on the board, the CEO of Tesla had agreed not to acquire more than 14.9% of the company’s shares while remaining on the board. Tesla shares rose after the revelation of its initial market. Following the news of his appointment to the board, Musk wrote on Twitter that he “was looking forward to working with the Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in the coming months!” It is not entirely clear what improvements Musk had in mind. In recent weeks, Musk had suggested on Twitter that the platform does not allow enough free speech and said he should do the open source algorithm. He also polled his followers last week on whether they “want an edit button,” a long-standing, if divisive, request from many Twitter users. Musk has not tweeted about his decision. CNN Business contacted Tesla (TSLA) for comment. – CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed to this report
