Twitter’s largest stakeholder Elon Musk joins board

In a move that could shape the future of the social media platform, Twitter has appointed its largest shareholder Elon Musk to its board.

The news comes a day after it was revealed that the Tesla and Space X founder and CEO currently owns a 9.2% share in Twitter.

Musk’s appointment ends the possibility of a takeover, capping his ownership at 14.9% during his time on the board, according to the terms set out in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing submitted yesterday.

Musk is no stranger to controversy on the platform – calling a British cave diver ‘a pedo guy’ on Twitter in 2019, which triggered a defamation lawsuit.

The billionaire entrepreneur is also still seeking to exit a 2018 deal with the SEC that put controls in place related to his tweeting about his electric vehicle firm Tesla.

However, analysts and shareholders have hailed Musk’s appointment as a positive move which could lead to changes and innovation following a year of disappointing growth.

Following news of his appointment Twitter’s stock rose by almost 30% as the market now looks to Musk to revitalise Twitter by virtue of his clout as its biggest shareholder and as an influential user on the platform, where he has over 80 million followers.

A day before his appointment was announced Musk asked Twitter users whether the platform should introduce an ‘edit’ feature – adding that ‘the consequences of this poll will be important’ (interestingly 73% responded ‘yes’ to the suggestion).

Musk has also promised to solve the problem of so-called crypto spam bots – which typically push fake Bitcoin scams through hacked accounts, and which frequently take advantage of Musk’s own feed and branding.

Musk’s appointment has also met the approval of his friend and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who stepped down as CEO last year and will leave the board when his term ends this year.