Elon Musk joins Twitter board
Elon Musk.
AP - Susan Walsh
Text by: Dominique Desaunay Follow
2 mins
Elon Musk, the billionaire and boss, among others, of American firms, SpaceX producing space launchers and Tesla manufacturing electric propulsion vehicles, joined the board of directors of the social network Twitter on Tuesday April 5.
An arrival that sparked a wave of comments from Internet users.
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It's a smooth business!
In just 24 hours, Elon Musk went from a simple user of the social network to that of a shareholder, with the announcement of a stake in the wealthy entrepreneur on the Twitter group.
This stock market operation carried out to the tune of almost 3 billion dollars enabled him to obtain approximately 9% of the shares of the company.
From now on, these purchases of securities allow him to obtain a position on the board of directors.
Meanwhile, the billionaire, a big Twitter user, surveyed his 80 million subscribers who follow him on the social network: “
Do you want an edit button?
“, taking up a complaint from users who complain that they cannot correct their messages after publication.
Remember that this long-standing request from Internet users has always been refused by the platform's steering committee.
But the three million people who took part in the poll overwhelmingly voted yes.
Do you want an edit button?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022
The announcement of his integration into the board of directors was made by the general manager of Twitter.
The two men congratulated each other, via tweets of course.
“
Welcome Elon!
“, writes enthusiastic Parag Agrawal, its managing director, adding that the billionaire who is both an enthusiast and an intense critic of the network, “
is exactly the man we need on @Twitter
”.
"
I look forward to working with Parag to offer real improvements in the months to come
," replied the American multi-billionaire.
The enthusiasm displayed by the messages of the two men is however to be weighed.
I'm excited to share that we're appointing @elonmusk to our board!
Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 5, 2022
According to the document that was filed with the SEC, the American market regulator, Elon Musk, as a member of the board of directors, is prohibited from owning more than 15% of the company.
And his mandate, which is renewable, will last until the general meeting of the management team in 2024.
With his integration into the management of the micro-blogging site, Elon Musk has sparked an avalanche of comments.
The richest man in the world, according to Forbes magazine's billionaire ranking, has generated more than 1,500,000 tweets since Monday, April 4.
Four times more than usual, observes Visibrain, a French company specializing in monitoring and analyzing data from the Web and social networks.
In their comments, some American Internet users believe that he “
saves freedom of expression on a social network dominated by Democrats
”.
And others worry, on the other hand, that Elon Musk, who describes himself as a libertarian close to the left, "
is preparing the return of Donald Trump's tweets
", banned from the social network since the American presidential election.
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