Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — Twitter stock (NYSE:) fell slightly on Tuesday in premarket trades, losing some gains from Monday due to private equity reports about the social media company.

Twitter stock fell 1.2% at 5:10 am ET (9:10 GMT) after Dow Jones reported Apollo Global Management (NYSE 🙂 had considered joining the fight for control. Thoma Bravo was also reported by Reuters. 

Last week, Twitter’s board rejected an aggressive $43 billion proposal from Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk (NASDAQ:). They also approved a “poison pill” defense mechanism to stop Musk’s plan of increasing his share over 15%. The board might have to accept Musk’s proposal if there are enough supporters.

Musk announced in April that he owned a 9.2% ‘passive’ share of the company. However, he declined the invitation to be a member of the board after failing with management to agree on a strategy for the future.

Musk has been critical of the perceived “censorship” of other voices at Reddit and described his plan to takeover as a defense for free speech. Yishan Wong, Reddit’s former CEO, said that Musk underestimates the importance of moderated content and the difficulties involved in the job. Musk should be warned against taking over.

“I can’t decide if I prefer Very Interesting Tech Hero Elon to take over Twitter, or if Very Heroic Space Adventurer Elon shouldn’t be wasting his time trying to fix Internet flamewars,” Wong noted. 

Wong also pointed out the tension that exists between Musk’s competing aims and those of existing Twitter shareholders. 

“Do you believe that Twitter does not make enough money? Or that Twitter does not protect free speech?” Wong said. Wong argued.