Elon Musk—And Jack Dorsey—Turn Up Pressure On Board

After Friday’s Twitter board moved to bolster defenses against Elon Musk’s hostile takeover proposal, Musk attempted to use the company’s platform, launching a series of critical tweets from the board this weekend. The message was meant to characterize the director as irresponsible for rejecting Musk’s offer.

Even more unusual is who else complained. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey left the CEO position in November and remains on the board until next month.

Dorsey calls the board “a persistently dysfunctional company” and says he agrees with venture capitalist Gary Tan. When another Twitter user asked Dorsey if he could speak publicly like this, Dorsey gave a clear answer. “no” he said.

By pointing out his small holdings in Twitter stock, Musk has tried to make the board out of touch with the company’s best interests. “With Jack leaving, the Twitter board collectively owns very little stock!” musk wrote. “Objectively, their economic interests are not aligned with the shareholders.” (Musk believes that if they had been a major shareholder, they wouldn’t have made a mistake with the great offer he made for the business.)

Tesla CEO Musk has offered to buy Twitter for $54.2 million per share. On Friday, the board announced it had adopted a lethal law that could sell shares and dilute Musk’s ownership. It’s a sign that the board isn’t very interested in accepting Musk’s offer. Musk said the unpredictable electric car billionaire could change his mind, but it’s completely possible, but he won’t make another car. In the case of Twitter, you may choose to find buyers you deem more suitable, a so-called white knight defense strategy.

Worth noting: There is no evidence suggesting an officially organized collusion by Musk and Dorsey over the weekend’s tweets. But even the unintentional or unofficial campaigns of two of the most important people in this battle to reach a total of 90 million users on Twitter could play a major role in turning public opinion against the board.

Twitter Board and Dorsey’s Beef Return to Twitter’s Beginnings In 2008, it worked with co-founder Ev Williams to fire Dorsey and appoint Williams as CEO. (During another board coup in 2010, Williams was replaced by then COO Dick Costolo. Five years later, as Twitter stock fell, Costolo left and Dorsey returned.) In recent years, Dorsey has been a strong advocate of decentralization of social media. , but it’s unclear exactly what that goal entails. Dorsey is funding a Twitter-based project called Bluesky to study the idea.