Elon Musk will soon be facing a tough crowd as Twitter plans on hosting a town hall with its newest board member to address disgruntled employees, giving them a chance to air-out their grievances over Musk’s new role in the company.
Twitter is slated to hold an AMA session (ask me anything) with the richest man on Earth to discuss staff concerns with Musk’s appointment to the board, The Washington Post reported.
“Following our board announcement, many of you have had different types of questions about Elon Musk, and I want to welcome you to ask those questions to him,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a companywide email on Thursday, according to The Post.
Twitter hasn’t set a date for its AMA session yet. Meanwhile, Musk has had his hands full (before a decidedly less-tough crowd) at Tesla’s Cyber Rodeo event Thursday to unveil Tesla’s new $US1.1 ($2) billion Gigafactory in Austin, Texas. The newish Texas resident wore a black cowboy hat and dark sunglasses. The other theme was apparently cringe as the venue was draped in blacklight, with cars hanging from the ceiling and a 3D drone image of Doge and Frankenstein. If you care to see the show in its entirety, footage from the event was uploaded to Tesla’s YouTube Channel.
Musk stepped on the stage (awkwardly imho) gesturing at adoring fans, one of whom was in actual tears, and did a nearly 30 minute presentation about Tesla. At the end, Musk rolled out the Cybertruck, and announced that it should be coming by the year 2023. But if you’ve been following along, you know not to have your heart set on that date.
In the meantime, things have certainly escalated between the Tesla CEO and Twitter after Musk bought roughly 73 million shares, or 9.2%, of Twitter on March 14, making him the largest shareholder of the company.
Shortly after, Musk was appointed as a board member of Twitter, much to the dismay of many of its employees who are wary of the billionaire’s influence on the company based on his criticism of its moderation policies. Musk was even playing around with the idea of starting his own social media platform to compete with Twitter. But as we’ve seen, launching your own site doesn’t always go as planned.
Musk has had a long and contentious history with Twitter. Aside from tweeting niche memes, Musk has come under fire for inflammatory tweets regarding Covid-19, attacking the media’s coverage of his companies, going after politicians like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, or that time he gracefully announced that he was starting a new university under the name Texas Institute of Technology & Science, noting that it would have “epic merch.”
As a result, Twitter employees have reportedly expressed concerns over Musk’s involvement in the company. One employee said they would likely face an HR investigation if they “tweeted some of the things Elon tweets,” The Post reported.
Following purchase of Twitter stocks, it’s still not clear exactly whether this is one of Musk’s latest stunts to prove a point or if Musk intends on taking a more proactive role on the board.