Wednesday, April 6, 2022

The big question now is when will Elon name himself founder of Twitter?

[For those who just tuned in to the Tech Messiah show, Musk retconned himself in as a founder of Tesla and of the company that would become PayPal. Twitter seems the next logical step.]

The Musk/Twitter story has been getting more play than I expected though, given the popularity of the platform with journalists, I should have seen it coming. Perhaps it merits one more post.

 Summer Concepcion writing for Talking Points Memo
News of Tesla CEO Elon Musk acquiring a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter has fired up the social media platform’s users in a special way today.

And the takes are, indeed, hot as right-wingers and Musk-devotees see the development as a sign their free speech savior has come to rescue the platform and seek vengeance for Donald Trump’s booting.

Musk’s appointment to Twitter’s board of director was confirmed by CEO Parag Agrawal in tweets posted Tuesday morning. Agrawal praised Musk as “both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service” who would “bring great value to our Board.”
Concepcion breaks down the responses into earnest critiques and right-wing praise. First the earnest.
This one might need a quick recap. Early in the pandemic (in addition to denying its seriousness and insisting that his factories should be exempt from lockdown rules), Musk promised to have Tesla start making ventilators for ICUs (The good news is that he was right about car companies helping with the crisis. The bad news...). He also took to Twitter to explain subtle principles of ventilators, intubation, etc. I'm not going to go into these topics because I know nothing about them. Unfortunately, neither did Musk. Immediately doctors with relevant expertise piled on to humiliating effect.  Elon quietly dropped the subject, but not before blocking some of the offending experts. 
 


And from the right.



The Disney plug seems a bit ironic.


Michael Hiltzik (writing for the LA Times) points out that the legal issues are even worse than they first appeared to be.
Agrawal’s announcement glossed over what’s probably the real reason he invited Musk onto the Twitter board: A day earlier, Musk disclosed that he had accumulated a 9.2% stake in the company’s stock. That made Musk, who already was among Twitter’s largest users, with more than 80 million followers, Twitter’s largest shareholder.

Any shareholder with that much heft is going to make his views known to management in a way that would be impossible to ignore, so from Agrawal’s vantage point, it was probably just as well that Musk be on the inside than on the outside looking in.

It’s proper to observe that Musk may not have been entirely candid about his intentions for Twitter.

He disclosed his ownership stake on the Security and Exchange Commission’s schedule 13G, which is typically used by shareholders intending to play a passive role in the subject company; investors buying stakes to play an active role, such as seeking control, generally disclose on schedule 13D, which is more detailed and requires more prompt disclosures of changes in shareholdings and intentions.

Musk also checked a box on the 13G form designating himself as a “passive investor.”

It’s possible that Musk never intended to be more than a passive investor, but Agrawal offered him a board set unbidden.

Agrawal did disclose, however, that he had held discussions with Musk, apparently about his joining the Twitter board, for “weeks.” It’s also worth noting that Agrawal did extract a written commitment from Musk not to increase his holdings beyond 14.9% as long as he’s on the board and for 90 days after he leaves.

It’s also possible that Musk is testing the SEC’s determination to force him to comply with its regulations, a practice that has made him a thorn in the agency’s side for years.
Or as another LAT writer puts it...

And for those who like their social media news with no Twitter but plenty of schadenfreude, enjoy.
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