Elon Musk Fires Entire Twitter Board: But Will Temporarily Direct Social Media Platform?

Elon Musk has not only bought Twitter but is now firmly sitting on the throne. "Chief Twit" is the sole director of the micro-blogging network because he has fired all the board members. Musk's Twitter takeover wasn't swift and followed months of back-and-forth. However, the new CEO of Twitter has quickly got to work, and seems to be pushing Twitter engineers to swiftly introduce new features, and even revive some old products.

Elon Musk Fires Twitter Board, Appoints Himself CEO

Elon Musk did not waste time discussing any strategies, roadmaps, or future objectives with Twitter's top management. Even before the rumors about Musk firing Twitter's entire board started circulating the internet, they have been corroborated by an official filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

"The following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li, and Mimi Alemayehou".

Essentially, Musk has retrenched nine directors. While Agrawal's exit was a near certainty, it is surprising to note that Elon Musk is now the sole board member, essentially, the only director of the micro-blogging network.

Dear friend "Chief Twit" @elonmusk

Together all the way 🤝🏻 @Twitter https://t.co/J9rnd013xz pic.twitter.com/bXo6RUaUwk

— الوليد بن طلال (@Alwaleed_Talal) October 28, 2022

Incidentally, Musk isn't just a single board member, he has also appointed himself as the CEO of Twitter. Interestingly, some of the big investors who had financially backed Twitter, seem unfazed by Musk's actions.

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, who left Twitter's board in May, has not only supported Musk's Twitter takeover, he has retained his entire stake in the platform. Specifically speaking, Dorsey has rolled his entire stake of 18 million shares into the new private company. Dorsey's shares are worth almost $978 million at the buyout price of $54.20 per share.

In addition to the entire board members, Twitter might lose about 25 percent of the workforce. The new CEO hasn't laid out any timeline or dropped any names, but the network's poorly performing employees may lose their jobs in the near future.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk Assures Board's Dissolution Is Temporary

Musk has tweeted that the move to dissolve the board "is just temporary". Moreover, he had previously indicated that he won't be Twitter's CEO for long. It appears he is at the helm of the platform to set the ball rolling.

Musk may have already zeroed in on his successor at Twitter. Although there's no official confirmation, Elon Musk has inducted Chennai-born Indian-American engineer Sriram Krishnan into the core team at Twitter. Krishnan is an investor and partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He confirmed the developments on Twitter through a recent tweet.

Now that the word is out: I’m helping out @elonmusk with Twitter temporarily with some other great people.

I ( and a16z) believe this is a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen. pic.twitter.com/weGwEp8oga

— Sriram Krishnan - sriramk.eth (@sriramk) October 30, 2022

Krishnan used to work for Twitter earlier, and has indicated that his team was responsible for driving Twitter's user growth by more than 20 percent year-over-year. He has worked on nearly every major aspect of Twitter including the home timeline, onboarding/new user experience, search, discovery, and more.

Needless to mention, Krishnan is quite familiar with Twitter's inner workings. Although Krishnan may seem like a good choice, Musk hasn't confirmed anything yet. Hence, it would be wise to wait for further developments.