Take hold of a large listed company to the point of integrating its management in 24 hours. This is the tour de force accomplished by entrepreneur Elon Musk on Twitter at the start of the week. Monday, April 4, the creator of Tesla and Space-X announced to everyone’s surprise that it had acquired 9.2% of the capital of the social networkbecoming its first shareholder.
The same evening (Tuesday 5 at 2:30 a.m. French time), the billionaire and virulent critic of Twitter launched his first offensive : a poll to find out if users want to be able to modify their tweets followingwards. While the initiative may seem innocuous at first glance, Musk hits a major sticking point here, as Twitter management was fiercely opposed to the idea of editing post-publication tweets for fear of abuse, despite the popularity of the demand. With this survey, Musk was therefore publicly questioning a decision at the heart of the company’s moderation strategy.
Tuesday, April 5 in the early morning, the self-proclaimed defender of freedom of expression, also accused of possible price manipulation by the financial market policeman for comments made on Twitter, obtained from Parag Agrawal, the current CEO of the social network, a place on the company’s board of directors.
[Je suis ravi de partager que nous nommons Elon Musk au sein du conseil d’administration ! A travers les conversations avec Elon ces dernières semaines, il était devenu clair qu’il apporterait une grande valeur à notre Conseil d’administration]
Twitter stock was up 6% before the opening bell, following finishing up more than 27% on Monday.
“Major” changes to come, promises Elon Musk
On Monday morning, the billionaire with a chaotic relationship with Twitter had taken care to specify that his spectacular entry into the capital was “passive” and was not accompanied by any intention of influencing the company’s strategy in any way. . A promise that is hard to believe given its stated desire to “fix” Twitter, as pointed out then The gallery.
24 hours later, here he is on the board and his intentions are now crystal clear, contrary to what he told the SEC:
[J’ai hâte de travailler avec Parag & le conseil d’administration de Twitter pour amener des améliorations majeures à Twitter dans les prochains mois!]
The question now is: where will it stop? According to the document sent by the company to the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission, le gendarme de la Bourse] and revealed by the site The Verge, Elon Musk is promoted to class 2 director, that is to say until the general meeting of shareholders in 2024. He is therefore one of the 11 directors of the company. During his mandate and up to 90 days later, he cannot hold more than 14.9% of the company’s capital, which will still allow him to exceed the 10% threshold and therefore become an activist shareholder. .
Elon Musk, a “free speech” activist once morest “censorship”
Twitter posted annual revenue in 2021 up 37% to $5.08 billion, for net income of $221 million. Its costs also increased by 35% in the last quarter, due to hiring, marketing costs and infrastructure investments. The platform announced 217 million daily users at the end of the year, up 13% over one year and is targeting 315 million at the end of 2023… an increase of 45% in users per year.
But if Twitter is an extremely influential medium around the world, the blue bird’s figures pale in comparison to Mark Zuckerberg’s social network empire, in particular Facebook, which claims 2.9 billion users per month. The company is criticized for its difficulties in significantly increasing its use – it has stagnated around 300 million for five years – and therefore in monetizing the treasure of personal data.
Twitter also faces criticism from all sides for its moderation: regulators accuse it of being lax in failing to prevent the proliferation of fake news, hate speech and harassment. On the other side of the spectrum, personalities like Donald Trump or Elon Musk accuse him of moderating too much and contravening freedom of expression by censoring comments deemed problematic.
In short, Twitter was the ideal target for an activist shareholder quick to surf on the discontent of investors and some of the users. And now that he sits on the Board of Directors, it’s hard to imagine Elon Musk, boss of two successful companies and the richest man in the world at the end of 2021, sitting quietly at the back of the room and remaining a second player. plan. The stock market is already appreciating: Twitter shares gained 6% before the opening bell, following finishing up more than 27% on Monday.
