At least until Elon Musk publicly tweeted early on April 9: “Is Twitter dying?” Newly released text exchanges between Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal revealed that the two men temporarily bonded in the spring over their passion of engineering.
That ruined an alliance that seemed to be blossoming around the time Twitter offered the billionaire Tesla CEO a board seat after finding out he had bought a sizable share in the business.
Agrawal questioned Musk about his public criticism of Twitter in the texts, calling the remarks disruptive and damaging to the business.
What accomplished this week? After less than a minute, Musk gave a short response. “I’m not a board member. Time is being wasted on this. a proposal to take Twitter private.”
The communications made public in court documents filed in Delaware before a crucial trial provide a glimpse into Twitter’s complex discussions with Musk.
The billionaire was openly suggesting ways to improve Twitter or launch a rival at the time, in addition to making significant investments in its stock.
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and Twitter are scheduled to appear in court on October 17 for a trial that will determine whether Musk must finish his agreed-upon $79 billion (US$44 billion) takeover of Twitter.
The records were initially made public on the Twitter account @chancery daily, which carefully monitors the Delaware Chancery Court, where the five-day trial will be held.
On April 7, just after Twitter granted him a board seat, Musk told Agrawal, “I have a tonne of ideas, but lmk if I’m pushing too hard.” “I just want Twitter to be as fantastic as possible.
Agrawal asked Musk to “treat me like an engineer” rather than a CEO as they discussed technical issues.
I adore our talks, Musk wrote at one point.
On April 11, two days following the controversy surrounding Musk’s “Twitter is dying” tweet, Agrawal declared Musk would not be joining the board after all. Musk had proposed to purchase Twitter altogether for around $44 billion, according to information provided by Twitter in a regulatory filing on April 14. Twitter finally accepted the transaction on April 25 after first attempting to stop the hostile takeover.
The redacted records Musk’s attorneys submitted early on Thursday after disputing a Twitter allegation that the text messages couldn’t be made public because they contained sensitive information included the text messages. Several of those Twitter papers’ “public versions” include extensive redactions and are virtually fully obscured. Contrarily, the documents containing the texts by Musk and Agrawal weren’t.
Additionally, talks between Musk and Jack Dorsey, a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, are included in the text message archive. Despite the “awful” board, Dorsey was excited to have Musk on board and told him that Agrawal was a “great engineer.”
Additionally, the texts contain Musk’s opinions expressed on Twitter with a variety of individuals in his network, including podcaster Joe Rogan, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, venture capitalists, and Musk’s own brother.
More witnesses are coming up for depositions as lawyers argue over which papers will be admitted as trial evidence.
Whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a former Twitter security head who testified to Congress earlier this month about what he called Twitter’s frail cyber defences, was among those deposed on Thursday. Musk’s legal team is hoping that Zatko’s awareness of Twitter’s issues with bogus and spam accounts will support Musk’s main justification for cancelling the agreement.
The removal of Musk might happen as soon as next week.
Musk and Twitter CEO Agrawal had a brief friendship, according to texts
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