The American media wonders what the consequences will be of the arrival of the CEO of Tesla on the board of Twitter. Newspaper.
By acquiring 9.2% of Twitter’s shares (namely four times more than co-founder Jack Dorsey) Elon Musk has had a lot of ink spilled. Logically, Tesla’s CEO ended up on the board of directors.
Elon Musk, Agrawal (current CEO) and Dorsey share the same overarching idea to radically shift the power of social media to users using a technology approach that gives people control over what they see in their social media feeds. For this reason, Agrawal welcomes the arrival of Elon Musk, who tweets a dozen times a day for his 80 million followers.
This is what the various American media think about it.
According to The edgethis media quarrel has the effect of masking the delicate situation in which the social network finds itself† The arrival of activist investors from the Elliott Management Corp group was a major contributor to Dorsey’s departure, and the group (once the transition was complete) decided to leave the board on the condition that Twitter:
- Increases user base by 100 million people.
- accelerates sales growth.
- gains market share as a medium.
There is therefore enormous pressure on the shoulders of Agrawal who could count on his good relationship with Elon Musk. The latter could indeed be make shore against the Elliott Group, even if it has only one vote in twelve, because its influence could vastly exceed the power it actually has.
However, The edge worries about how chaotic the billionaire will look and what duties he will take on as a board member. In the conclusion, the media wonders what the risk is that Elon Musk will “crush” the current CEO, voluntarily or not.
Accessible on your computer or as a download for your smartphone, Twitter is the official application of the social microblogging network, find all tweets on your mobile device.
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Publication date :
04/04/2022 -
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Internet communication
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CNET : 4 possible changes
on his side, the website CNET.com looks at what Elon Musk could bring concretely based on the latter’s polls, but also his recent statements. Four points emerge, which Elon Musk sees as points for improvement.
First of all, moderation† In a poll on free speech, 70% of the 2 million voters said that Twitter does not really respect free speech. For Elon Musk, such an open media should be a space for free exchange. Keep in mind, however, that as a private company, Twitter is not subject to the First Amendment and can therefore perfectly control the nature of the content posted.
Then Elon Musk shares the problem of: cryptocurrency scams that are abundant on the social network. Having himself been the victim of identity theft from fake accounts promoting bitcoin scams, Tesla’s CEO laments the company’s efforts to identify profile photos with NFTs at the expense of fighting crypto spam bots.
In a new poll, the new board member asks if users want to support it an edit button† Since this feature has been claimed for a long time, it’s no surprise that 75% of the 4 million voters answered in the affirmative. A function that would be studied in the company for a long time, but feared. Leaders fear the message will change once it becomes widespread and Dorsey likes the idea that the service evokes the same feeling it had when it was created, which is a text messaging system (i.e. not editable).
Still, it’s frustrating not being able to correct a typo afterwards, and only Twitter Blue (paid) subscribers can delete their tweet before correcting and reposting it. One solution could be to allow editing for a shorter amount of time and allow retweets after that time has passed.
Finally, Elon Musk raises the opportunity to pass the open source network algorithm (although he does not specify the consequences of such a choice). The idea is to respond to users’ overall dissatisfaction with the various algorithms taking precedence over the historical stream. Dorsey also shares this view and believes that it is up to the user to choose whether or not to use the algorithms (which Instagram is also working on at the moment).
wired questions the billionaire’s motives
The website wired focuses on the drivers that led Elon Musk to invest in the social network by collecting the opinions of different people.
According to Anil Dash, CEO of start-up Glitch, activist shareholders often have three reasons to take stock in a company: dividing the company (which in this case wouldn’t get Elon Musk anything), getting a CEO under control (which Dash says can’t be ruled out), or getting a dividend for themselves (knowing that Twitter isn’t making any money anymore ).
In the case of Elon Musk, it could just be: a way to be privileged on the platform and have the power to bring back people who have been exiled because of his opinion (trump card is given as an example, but the businessman was suspended for inciting violence and his return seems very difficult).
An opinion shared by the crypto investor Maya Zehavi, also a shareholder of the company. According to him, the arrival of Elon Musk would be a means to don’t push the platform to censor more than necessary†
For his part, Adrian Zamora, spokesperson for Twitter, indicates that day-to-day business and decisions are the responsibility of management and that the board of directors only has an advisory role. The arrival of Elon Musk should therefore not lead to a change in policy.
The media then dwells on the ramifications of Elon Musk’s presence on the board, pointing out that the billionaire’s choice not to acquire more than 10% of the stock allows him to escape a detailed scrutiny by the SEC (which grants insider status). for people with more than 10%).
Securing a seat on the board comes with obligations for Tesla’s CEO:
- Not being able to pull out of investments for six months on pain of not being able to touch profits (Twitter shares went from $39.30 to $53.84 after the billionaire’s arrival).
- The inability to hold more than 14.9% of the shares while on the board and for the next 90 days.
This last point allows managers to: buy protection against the risk of layoffs and explains the punctuality to allocate a seat to the newcomer (which the financial authorities don’t necessarily like).
The media also moderates by specifying that Elon Musk may very well be inactive in the management of the company and that this whole operation is just a major communication boost for this media-loving character. A great opportunity also for him to blow his nose at the SEC after the problems caused by the tweet about the privatization of Tesla in 2018.
So it seems that the opinion is generally shared: good ideas? Much ado about not much? Difficult to decide because the character is unpredictable. Only time can give answers.
