Not for the first time, people are wondering what on earth (as opposed to in space) Elon Musk is up to.
Having taken a 9.2% stake in social media giant Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), Musk, the world’s wealthiest man and the boss of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), was all set to join the board over the weekend but apparently got cold feet.
Parag Agrawal, the chief executive officer of Twitter, said on Sunday the decision not to join the Twitter board was Musk’s and the decision may have come as something of a relief to the Twitter boss after a series of typically inflammatory tweets from Musk, including one in which the spacefaring entrepreneur wondered – on Twitter no less – whether the social media platform is dying, given that a number of the platform’s most widely followed members are tweeting less often.
Musk also pondered whether Twitter should convert its San Francisco headquarters into a shelter for the homeless because “no one shows up anyway”.
Elon Musk might turn Twitter's office into a homeless shelter
Either way, the building will have visitors that look like this: pic.twitter.com/JdWQdnV2ZP
— John W. Rich (Fake Tech Exec) (@Cokedupoptions) April 10, 2022
Jeff Bezos, the spacefaring boss of Amazon who is not the richest man in the world and not exactly known for his paternalistic attitude towards Amazon employees (or <cough> contractors), suggested on Twitter that the homeless shelter idea was a good one. Bezos noted that Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) had converted some floors at his Seattle headquarters into refuges for the homeless and that this made easy for Amazon employees to volunteer in their spare time (if they had any) to help the homeless.
Over the weekend, Musk set up a Twitter poll and asked his 81mln+ followers whether Twitter should go ahead with the homeless shelter idea and more than 91% were in favour.
The tweet garnered Musk yet more free publicity, raising suspicions that he was not entirely serious about the idea, despite protestations that “I’m serious about this one by the way”.
Musk, presumably in more frivolous mood, also set up a poll asking if Twitter should lose the W in its name.
Hilarious.
We believe the Twitter Board and Musk could not come to an agreement around Musk's communications with the public. This now goes from a Cinderella story with Musk joining the Twitter Board and keeping his stake under 14.9% to likely a "Game of Thrones" battle in the months ahead
— Dan Ives (@DivesTech) April 11, 2022
On a more serious note, joining the board of Twitter would have obliged Musk to limit his stake in the company at 14.9% and some have wondered whether his decision to not become a director means he is mulling a full bid, which might explain why he was openly musing about whether Twitter is dying - a view that if adopted by his followers, could drive down the price of Twitter shares.
Twitter had been planning for Musk’s term on the board to run until 2024; he could, of course, have resigned from the board before then but even so, he would’ve been obliged to wait 90 days after resigning before increasing his stake above 15%. For a man not given to looking before he leaps, a 90-day interval might have been too much to endure.