A few hours ago we published that Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter again and maintains his offer of 44,000 million dollars to get rid of the trial. And in this Musk-Twitter soap opera that started last spring, there’s a new chapter: the secret messages that Elon Musk shared with Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO for less than a year, and then with Jack Dorsey, the founder, who had to intercede.
In this new chapter it has been leaked that the CEO tells the tycoon Musk that “you are free to post that Twitter is dying, or whatever you want to post, but it is my responsibility to tell you that this does not help me improve Twitter in a context like this “. When Parag Agrawal took over as Twitter CEO last November, following the surprise resignation of co-founder Jack Dorsey, he was little known outside the company.
What was not easy to imagine is that these months were going to be so controversial for him and about him. As you remember from CNN, Agrawal has staged a disclosurehas been reprimanded at a congressional hearing and drawn criticism from the world’s richest man (and his possible future boss) both in public and in private.
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They were already in contact before Musk’s announcement
The series of text messages, revealed in a Delaware court filing, suggest the two men briefly bonded, including over their shared love of engineering, after Agrawal contacted him, weeks before Musk revealed his offer to buy Twitter.
“Hi Elon – great to be connected directly. Would love to chat,” Agrawal wrote on March 27. The files show that Musk liked the message and that they agreed to meet around 8 p.m. A few days later, on March 31, stayed for dinner near San Joséas momentum for the deal gathered pace.
The communications give an idea of the careful negotiations that were taking place in private. At that time, the billionaire had invested in shares of the company and suggested ideas for improvement while publicly proposing to create his own open source social network.
At one point, Agrawal questioned Musk in texts about his public criticism of Twitter, calling his comments unhelpful and “internally distracting.” And Musk’s response was: “What have you been up to this week?” Musk replied less than a minute later. “I’m not going into the council. This is a waste of time.” And finally he told him that “I will make an offer to make Twitter private”.
Parag Agrawal texts Elon Musk
April 9, 2022 pic.twitter.com/40bP9RDCSA
— Internal Tech Emails (@TechEmails) September 29, 2022
The trial, which will begin on October 17, will decide if the richest man in the world will have to complete the acquisition of the $44 billion social media company he has agreed to.
Two days later, Agrawal and Musk seemed to hit it off, planning their working relationship. “Wrote heavy software for 20 years,” Musk wrote. “I I relate much better with engineers who are capable of programming than with managers or MBAs.” Agrawal responded, “In our next conversation, treat me like an engineer instead of a CEO and let’s see where we get to.”
Musk and Dorsey
This does not stop here. The co-founder of Twitter also entered the rag. During Elon Musk’s controversial bid to acquire Twitter, Jack Dorsey told Tesla’s CEO that the microblogging platform should be based on an “open source protocol, funded by a foundation.” On April 5, Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, described Agrawal to Musk as an “incredible engineer”but stated that the company’s board of directors was “terrible”.
Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk
March 26, 2022 pic.twitter.com/gMa7xzINtp
— Internal Tech Emails (@TechEmails) September 29, 2022
Dorsey’s idea was that “instead of continuing to subject Twitter to conventional corporate ownership,” Twitter should be funded by a foundation with no control over a public protocol. “A bit like what Signal has done,” Dorsey continued. “You can’t have an advertising model.” As Dorsey explained, having an advertising model leaves room for the government and advertisers to try to influence and control. Remember that Dorsey has said in the past that he feels guilty about making the Internet a centralized giant.
After this, Bret Taylor, president of the board of directors of Twitter, contacted Musk: “Parag has told me about your conversation, can we talk?” And Musk’s response was: “count on receiving a private offer.” One of Musk’s most prominent phrases in this conversation is: “fixing Twitter by talking to Parag is not going to help” and that “a drastic decision has to be made”. Lugo tells him that trying to solve problems with a public company is not going to work and that this is also Dorsey’s opinion. Taylor reminds him that he has only been on the board for 24 hours and if they can talk to understand his position. Musk tells him that he is about to leave, but that they can talk the next day.