Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — Twitter’s stock declined in premarket trading Monday morning after Parag Agrawal, CEO of Twitter, said over the weekend that Elon Musk would not join the board at Tesla (NASDAQ) after all. 

Twitter offered Musk, the richest person in the world and the most followed microblog user on Twitter, a seat on its board last week. This was after Musk disclosed that he had a 9.2% share of the company. 

In response to Musk’s announcement, Twitter stock rose by 25%. The stock had been losing over half its value ever since reaching its February 2021 peak.

Musk told Agrawal on Saturday that he had not accepted the invitation to join the board. Agrawal made the following statement via the platform: “I believe that this is the best. We value the input of all shareholders, regardless of whether or not they serve on our Board. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.”

Musk for his part issued a number of tweets over the weekend about Twitter, some serious and some funny. He also suggested that the company would accept payment to Blue’s premium service using, the cryptocurrency he had previously promoted. 

Agrawal stated that Musk was attempting to change its strategy, which suggested that Agrawal had been concerned about it.

“We also believed that having Elon as a fiduciary of the company where he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders, was the best path forward,” Agrawal said. 

Musk’s activities on the site after he disclosed his stake indicated that he was planning to alter various aspects of the company’s operation, even though he referred to his investment as passive.  Musk’s activity on the site since he disclosed his stake had indicated that he would seek to change various elements of the company’s operations despite calling himself an “activist”. Investors looking to engage in a stronger ‘activist” relationship are required to tell more about their plans to Securities and Exchanges Commission – something that Musk has yet not done.