Elon Musk will join Twitter's board of directors, the social media platform announced on Tuesday. The news comes one day after a regulatory filing revealed the Tesla and SpaceX CEO purchased 9.2% of Twitter stock, officially setting him up as the company's largest shareholder.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal shared the news in a tweet Tuesday morning saying, "Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board." Agrawal added as a "passionate believer and intense critic of the service," Musk would, "make us stronger in the long term."
Musk responded that he was, "Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!"
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO will serve for a term that concludes in 2024 and has made an agreement he will acquire no more than 14.9% of the company's shares while on the board. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey currently holds only 2.3% of the company's shares.
Last November, Dorsey stepped down as Twitter's CEO and was replaced by Agrawal, who at the time worked as chief technology officer. When the announcement came out, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison tweeted that Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Palo Alto Networks and Twitter were now all run by CEOs from India, to which Musk replied: "USA benefits greatly from Indian talent!"
A few days later Musk took to Twitter again sending out a meme that depicted Agrawal as Joseph Stalin and Dorsey as the former Soviet leader's confidant which Stalin later assassinated.
The news of Musk''s board appointment came as a surprise to many as Musk has been a long time critic of the platform. His shares in the company as well as his influence over the social media platform have drawn concern.
Twitter commenters were quick to point out Musk's questionable history with the social media platform. With over 80 million Twitter followers, Musk's frequent tweets have often led to controversial results, one time going so far as to involve the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
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Musk tweeted in 2018 that Tesla was going private and funding was secured for $420 a share. Funding, however, had not been secured at that point and as a result of the tweet, the vehicle manufacturer's share prices spiked as high as 13.3% in violation of SEC laws. Musk settled the lawsuit brought by the SEC and stepped down as Tesla's chairman while retaining his position as CEO.
Musk has also recently been in the news for a lawsuit filed against Tesla by the state of California over accusations of what employees describe as "a racist work environment."
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While Musk has indicated he will be making "significant improvements" to Twitter it is unclear what those improvements will be. On Monday he tweeted out a poll asking if people wanted an edit feature added to the platform.
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