Elon Musk No Longer Joining Twitter’s Board of Directors

Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington. (AP)
Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington. (AP)
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Elon Musk No Longer Joining Twitter’s Board of Directors

Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington. (AP)
Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington. (AP)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk won't be joining Twitter's board of directors as previously announced. The tempestuous billionaire remains Twitter’s largest shareholder.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted the news, which followed a weekend of Musk tweets suggesting possible changes to Twitter, including making the site ad-free. Nearly 90% of Twitter's 2021 revenue came from ads.

"Elon's appointment to the board was to become officially effective on 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he would not be joining the board,” Agrawal wrote in a reposted note originally sent to Tesla employees. "I believe this is for the best.”

Agrawal didn't offer an explanation for Musk's apparent decision, although he dropped one major hint. The Twitter board "believed 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," he wrote.

Musk posted a few cryptic tweets late Sunday, including one showing a meme saying, "In all fairness, your honor, my client was in goblin mode," followed by one saying "Explains everything." Another, later tweet was of an emoji with a hand over its mouth.

He now has a 9% stake in Twitter, raising questions about how he might try to reshape the social media platform as Twitter’s biggest shareholder.

Musk’s 80.5 million Twitter followers make him one of the most popular figures on the platform, rivaling pop stars like Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga. But his prolific tweeting has sometimes gotten him into trouble, such as when he has used it to promote his business ventures, rally Tesla loyalists, question pandemic measures and pick fights.

In one famous example, Musk apologized to a British cave explorer who alleged the Tesla CEO had branded him a pedophile by referring to him as "pedo guy” in an angry - and subsequently deleted - tweet. The explorer filed a defamation suit, although a Los Angeles jury later cleared Musk.

He’s also been locked in a long-running dispute with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over his Twitter activity. Musk and Tesla in 2018 agreed to pay $40 million in civil fines and for Musk to have his tweets approved by a corporate lawyer after he tweeted about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share. That didn’t happen but the tweet caused Tesla’s stock price to jump. His lawyer has contended that the SEC is infringing on Musk’s free speech rights.

Musk has described himself as a "free speech absolutist” and has said he doesn’t think Twitter is living up to free speech principles - an opinion shared by followers of Donald Trump and several right-wing political figures who’ve had their accounts suspended for violating Twitter content rules.

But what’s really has been driving Musk’s Twitter involvement isn’t clear. Other preoccupations with the service include arguing to make Twitter’s algorithm viewable by the public, widening the availability of "verified” Twitter accounts, and blasting a profile photo initiative involving non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.

Musk has also called "crypto spam bots,” which search tweets for cryptocurrency related keywords then pose as customer support to empty user crypto wallets, the "most annoying problem on Twitter.”

Twitter's CEO and other board members have praised Musk, suggesting they might take his ideas seriously.

Agrawal's initial actions since taking over from co-founder Jack Dorsey in November have involved reorganizing divisions without making major changes. The company has long lagged behind its social media rivals and boasts far fewer users.



Google Hires Windsurf Execs in $2.4 Billion Deal to Advance AI Coding Ambitions

FILE PHOTO: A Google logo is seen at a company research facility in Mountain View, California, US, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A Google logo is seen at a company research facility in Mountain View, California, US, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
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Google Hires Windsurf Execs in $2.4 Billion Deal to Advance AI Coding Ambitions

FILE PHOTO: A Google logo is seen at a company research facility in Mountain View, California, US, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A Google logo is seen at a company research facility in Mountain View, California, US, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

Alphabet's Google has hired several key staff members from AI code generation startup Windsurf, the companies announced on Friday, in a surprise move following an attempt by its rival OpenAI to acquire the startup.

Google is paying $2.4 billion in license fees as part of the deal to use some of Windsurf's technology under non-exclusive terms, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. Google will not take a stake or any controlling interest in Windsurf, the person added.

Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some members of the coding tool's research and development team will join Google's DeepMind AI division, Reuters reported.

The deal followed months of discussions Windsurf was having with OpenAI to sell itself in a deal that could value it at $3 billion, highlighting the interest in the code-generation space which has emerged as one of the fastest-growing AI applications, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in June.

OpenAI could not be immediately reached for a comment.

The former Windsurf team will focus on agentic coding initiatives at Google DeepMind, primarily working on the Gemini project.

"We're excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf's team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding," Google said in a statement.

The unusual deal structure marks a win for backers for Windsurf, which has raised $243 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Greenoaks and General Catalyst, and was last valued at $1.25 billion one year ago, according to PitchBook.

Windsurf investors will receive liquidity through the license fee and retain their stakes in the company, sources told Reuters.

'ACQUIHIRE' DEALS

Google's surprise swoop mirrors its deal in August 2024 to hire key employees from chatbot startup Character.AI.

Big Tech peers, including Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, have similarly taken to these so-called acquihire deals, which some have criticized as an attempt to evade regulatory scrutiny.

Microsoft struck a $650 million deal with Inflection AI in March 2024, to use the AI startup's models and hire its staff, while Amazon hired AI firm Adept's co-founders and some of its team last June.

Meta took a 49% stake in Scale AI in June in the biggest test yet of this increasing form of business partnerships.

Unlike acquisitions that would give the buyer a controlling stake, these deals do not require a review by US antitrust regulators. However, they could probe the deal if they believe it was structured to avoid those requirements or harm competition. Many of the deals have since become the subject of regulatory probes.

The development comes as tech giants, including Alphabet and Meta, aggressively chase high-profile acquisitions and offer multi-million-dollar pay packages to attract top talent in the race to lead the next wave of AI.

Windsurf's head of business, Jeff Wang, has been appointed its interim CEO, and Graham Moreno, vice president of global sales, will be president, effective immediately.

The majority of Windsurf's roughly 250 employees will remain with the company, which has announced plans to prioritize innovation for its enterprise clients.