by Maxwell Adler and Sarah Frier
employees twitter The company had their monthly “rest day” off this Monday. However elon musk it made it hard not to think about work.
Announcing that he will become Twitter’s single largest shareholder this month, billionaire Musk ditched his plan to join the company’s board over the weekend.
Days ago, CEO Parag Agrawal had laid the groundwork for a friendly relationship by inviting Musk to join the board. The company was confident enough to admit to listing Musk as a board member on its investor relations website. Agrawal also hosted a Q&A with Musk and staff this week.
For some employees, the reversal marked chaos: Musk would continue to tweet his criticisms of Twitter to the more than 80 million followers on the site, without obligation to act in the company’s best interests. The Q&A session has been cancelled.
In an announcement late Sunday, Agrawal said Musk’s surprise decision was good for Twitter, but warned of “distractions ahead.”
Officials said the explosions were disturbing. The Twitter team is “super stressed”, employees “working together to get through the week with each other”, some asked not to be identified while discussing internal details.
In recent days, Musk has tweeted about his ideas for Twitter, from eliminating ads for members of his subscription service to turning part of his San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter.
Without a seat on the board, there are no more restrictions on the number of shares he can buy or tweets. One employee expressed concern that Musk “is just getting started, which is unfortunate.”
Some Twitter staffers had mixed feelings about participating in the Q&A with Musk, though. It could have clarified whether he planned to be friendly or hostile with Musk’s involvement, but it could raise more questions about how to respond to his whims.
“The sudden chilling effect Musk had was something that really bothered me,” Rumman Chowdhury, director of the AI research team, wrote on the social media site.
Meanwhile, Musk’s fans on Twitter followed his lead and criticized the platform. “Twitter has a beautiful culture of very funny constructive criticism, and I’ve seen it silenced by followers attacking their staff,” Chowdhury said.
The sudden change of mind about Musk’s board seat also led to speculation about his intentions. Musk, who owns just over 9 percent of the company, is no longer subject to a deal that would limit his stake to 14.9 percent by not joining the board.
“Elon’s decision doesn’t bode well for Twitter,” said social media consultant Matt Navarra, as it could boost its stake as it publishes increasingly hostile things about the platform. “Twitter thought it was hard for Trump to be on the platform. Elon Musk will be a corporate nightmare.”
Source: Exame
