Elon Musk is scheduled to participate in a comprehensive meeting with company employees Thursday, the first time the billionaire has spoken directly with the company’s workforce since he began his attempts to buy it in April.
A spokesperson said Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced the meeting in an email to employees Monday, saying they might submit questions to Mr. Musk in advance, according to a report in the newspaper. The Wall Street Journal.
The spokesperson said the company’s chief marketing officer, Leslie Berland, will run the event.
Business Insider had previously published details of the meeting.
In late April, Twitter accepted Musk’s $44 billion offer to acquire the company and make it private.
Later, Musk said the deal was on hold due to concerns regarding the accuracy of the company’s estimates of spam accounts on its social media platform.
Musk threatened earlier this month to terminate the deal in a letter accusing the company of failing to comply with his request for data on unwanted accounts.
A Twitter spokesperson said at the time that the company continued to share information with Musk and that it planned to merge.
With Monday’s announcement, it was not possible to determine whether Musk’s plans to speak to Twitter employees this week meant the two sides had reached an agreement, the newspaper said.
Twitter shares initially rose, ending up at regarding $37, well below the bid price of $54.20.
Uncertainty regarding the outcome of the deal has left employees confused and raised questions regarding how to operate a platform of some 229 million daily users while its potential owner is using it to publicly attack the company over everything from oversight policies to the business model.
Twitter employees expressed mixed reactions to Musk’s presentation.
When this was announced, some wrote on Slack’s internal messaging channel that they were planning to quit, employees told the newspaper, while one tweeted that Musk’s acquisition might help increase hiring.
Musk said in tweets, organizational filings and interviews that he will make major changes to Twitter when he buys it, including offering an option for longer tweets, creating an edit button for tweets, and opening up the platform’s algorithm so anyone can view it and recommend changes.
He also talked regarding relying less on ads and easing Twitter’s stance on moderating content.
In May, Musk said he would reverse the platform’s ban on former President Donald Trump, calling it a “morally bad decision.”
