Twitter Stock Is Dropping Because Elon Musk Won’t Be Joining Its Board After All. Here’s What’s Happening.
Elon Musk won’t join Twitter’s board, after all. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Photograph by JIM WATSON / AFP /Getty Images; Barron’s art department
Twitter stock tumbled in premarket trading Monday after it was announced Elon Musk wouldn’t be joining the board of the social media company, after all.
Twitter (ticker: TWTR) CEO Parag Agrawal late Sunday sent out a tweet saying Musk, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA) who recently took a 9.2% position in Twitter, wouldn’t be joining the Twitter board. He was to have joined effective on Saturday. Musk was still listed as a member of Twitter’s board on the company website as of early Monday.
“I believe this is for the best,” Agrawal’s tweet said. “We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.”
Musk spent the weekend putting ideas about the social media company out on his own Twitter feed, including one that said subscribers to Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service, should be able to pay with dogecoin.
“There will be distractions ahead,” Agrawal said. “The decisions we make and how we execute is in our hands, no one else’s.”
Musk’s purchase of a 9.2% stake in Twitter was made public last Monday, and the next day it was announced that the Tesla CEO would be serving on the company’s board. Now that he isn’t a board member, Musk might not be subject to keeping his stake in Twitter below 14.9%.Twitter has dropped 5.3% to $43.78 in premarket trading Monday. Coming into Monday trading, the stock has risen almost 7% year to date but has declined nearly 35% over the past one year.Write to Liz Moyer at [email protected]
