Entrepreneur and business magnate Elon Musk gestures during a visit at the Tesla Gigafactory plant under construction, on August 13, 2021 in Gruenheide near Berlin, eastern Germany.
Patrick Pleul | AFP | Getty Images
Days before Tesla CEO Elon Musk put in a bid Thursday to buy Twitter for $43 billion, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal warned of “distractions ahead.”
Agrawal’s initial warning came after an already tumultuous week for Twitter. First, Musk’s roughly 9% stake in the social media company was revealed early last week, sending Twitter shares soaring. Then, Agrawal announced that Musk would join the Twitter board. Finally, Agrawal said Musk had changed his mind and decided not to join the board after all.
That last decision left the door open to a hostile takeover. While Twitter’s price tag is relatively small for the billionaire, some analysts had questioned whether it’s really where Musk would want to spend his limited time. He already leads both Tesla and SpaceX and founded other ongoing initiatives like The Boring Co. and Neuralink.
Agrawal provided scarce detail in his announcement Sunday that Musk would no longer join the board.
“We were excited to collaborate and clear about the risks. We also believed that having Elon as a fiduciary of the company where he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders was the best path forward,” he wrote.
“There will be distractions ahead, but our goals and priorities remain unchanged,” Agrawal continued. “The decisions we make and how we execute is in our hands, no one else’s. Let’s tune out the noise, and stay focused on the work and what we’re building.”
WATCH: Elon Musk decides not to join Twitter’s board of directors