What Elon Musk could mean for Twitter

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Let's talk about what Musk means for the future of the social network.

The relationship between the social network and the CEO is rapidly changing. As far as the world was concerned, Musk was one of the most famous users. He has become its largest individual shareholder over the past month. Musk has a seat on the board.

Kate Conger and Mike Isaac are at the New York Times.

Mr. Musk had ideas for reshaping social networks that dovetailed with those of Mr. Agrawal and Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, according to their public exchanges. All three have floated the notion of radically shifting the power in social networking to users and away from behemoth companies, by using an approach to technology that would give people control over what they see in their social media feeds.

In the ensuing weeks, Mr. Agrawal discussed having Mr. Musk become a more active participant in Twitter’s future, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations who were not authorized to speak publicly. Mr. Agrawal also welcomed having Mr. Musk — who has more than 80 million Twitter followers and sometimes tweets a dozen or more times a day — join the company’s board, one of the people said.

The biggest story in tech this week has been Musk's stake in Twitter. That is an artifact of the public's near-total fascination with Musk. No matter what happens on Twitter, you can be assured that every user has an opinion about it.

Because Musk represents himself online as a kind of mischievous trickster god, his stock purchase has been covered to date primarily through the lens of shenanigans. Musk's online behavior over the past couple days has done little to suggest that his stake is anything other than the antics of a prank; his first official comment on the $2.64 billion purchase was.

The hubbub obscures what has been a tumultuous time at the micro-blogging site. It has barely been four months since Dorsey stepped down from the company due to a campaign from the activist investor group.

The board was left by Elliott just over a year later. As a condition of leaving, it had set aggressive goals for the company that was not close to meeting: growing its user base by 100 million people, increasing revenue and gaining market share as a digital advertiser. The pressure to hit these marks seemed to be a part of the reason that Dorsey left.

In the first few months of his tenure, there have been few signs of how he intends to achieve those goals. The company is trying to increase its revenue by adding subscription projects and tools for creators. In the most recent quarter, it lost money and added barely six million new users.

The company is vulnerable to a challenge from activist investors down the road, who might try to force out the CEO or force the company to sell itself.

This is the most interesting aspect of Musk joining the board. Musk has been friendly with both of them. Musk once posted a meme comparing to Stalin. They are all enthusiastic about the idea of a new protocol. They like cryptocurrencies.

They are very excited about the fact that Musk has joined the board. Here are the people on that subject.

It is possible that Musk's presence on the board will serve as a kind of bulwark against other investors. His status as both the platform's largest shareholder and most influential board member will likely give him soft power that exceeds his technical authority.

On the day Musk joined, the price of the stock went up 27 percent, making it a meme stock. It was up another 2 percent today, so if that holds true, activist investors could have a hard time mounting a challenge to Agrawal's leadership. It's also good for attracting and retaining talent, whose compensation is often tied to the stock price.

Is Musk going to be an activist investor? So far, what kind of activist investor he wants to be?

Musk has mused about starting an alternative social network that has less restrictions on what people can post on. This has led to speculation that he might try to change the policies of the social network.

We know that Musk asked his 80 million followers if he should have an edit button when he was a board member. I asked Musk to weigh in on the subject.

If there was any thought that the board of directors would ignore this sort of product development, you would nod politely at an uncle who was asking questions at Thanksgiving dinner.

Maybe he is winking at us. We shouldn't fault him for having fun online or for wanting to build goodwill with his most influential board member. It was confirmed today that it is building an edit button, and that it began building it last year.

This sort of thing can be a distraction for a CEO who has bigger fish to fry. As a company that has struggled to live up to its potential, Agrawal was going to face criticism that he was simply more of the same. The fact that Dorsey left the board gave Agrawal an opportunity to begin crafting his own version of the micro-messaging service.

Now that Musk is around, he may find himself struggling to balance his own vision against that of an unpredictable board member with a much louder megaphone.

Dick Costolo, who joined the company as chief operating officer in 2009, posted a joke about the company on one of the most famoustweets.

First full day as Twitter COO tomorrow. Task #1: undermine CEO, consolidate power.

— dick costolo (@dickc) September 13, 2009

Costolo was chosen to be the new CEO of the company just over a year after he made the joke.

It feels like a fool to predict what Musk will do as a board member because he is so chaotic. I can be the only one who wonders if he will undermine the CEO.

I would watch my back if I were Parag.