Elon Musk secures a board seat at Twitter

Elon Musk has been named to Twitter’s board of directors after buying up 9.2% of the social media site’s stock, to emerge as its largest shareholder.

“Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board,” CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted Tuesday morning.

“He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need on Twitter, and in the boardroom, to make us stronger in the long-term.”

In response, Musk said he was “looking forward to working … to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!”

The deal, though, comes with a catch for the Tesla titan: In exchange for his board seat, he cannot buy more than 14.9% of Twitter’s common stock for the duration of his tenure, plus 90 days after, according to an SEC filing Tuesday.

It’s unclear if Musk had plans to continue buying up stock or if this was a precautionary measure on Twitter’s part.

The board seat is for a Class II director and the term will expire in 2024.

Late Monday, Musk used his new authority to broach the most controversial subject on Twitter, the addition of an edit button.

As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, the poll had more than 2.9 million votes, with about 74% of respondents voting yes.

Musk’s more than 73 million shares were worth about $2.9 billion at the close of trading Friday and jumped to $3.5 billion Monday after the announcement of his purchase.

Neither he nor the SEC revealed when he actually bought the shares.

Last month, he mused about Twitter’s role in protecting free speech.

“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” the 50-year-old entrepreneur tweeted alongside a poll on March 25.

“The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.”

Of more than 2 million votes, 70.4% of respondents said “no.”

Musk’s use of his own free speech has gotten him in trouble before. He was slapped with a $20 million fine by the SEC in 2018 after his tweets about securing funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share caused a market collapse.

Musk resigned as the Tesla chairman as part of the settlement over the fraud charges but was allowed to stay on as CEO.