Elon Musk’s texts with Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal detail tumultuous Twitter negotiations

A tranche of Elon Musk’s private messages have been made public as part of his ongoing lawsuit with Twitter. The messages, revealed in a Thursday, shed new light on Musk’s behind-the-scenes negotiations with Twitter’s leadership, as well discussions with former CEO Jack Dorsey, and how Musk’s talks with CEO Parag Agrawal quickly soured.

The messages include the moment Musk tells Agrawal he wants to acquire Twitter and take it private, rather than join the board. Agrawal confronts Musk about an April 9th spør om "Twitter dør."

Agrawal writes to Musk:

You are free to tweet “is Twitter dying?” or anything else about Twitter – but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context. Next time we speak, I’d like to you provide you [sic] perspective on the level of the internal distraction right now and how it [sic] hurting our ability to do work. I hope the AMA will help people get to know you, to understand why you believe in Twitter, and to trust you – and I’d like the company to get to a place where we are more resilient and don’t get distracted but we aren't there right now.

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Musk svarte mindre enn et minutt senere. «Hva fikk du gjort denne uken? Jeg blir ikke med i styret. Dette er bortkastet tid. Vil gi et tilbud om å ta Twitter privat."

Twitter board chair Bret Taylor followed up with Musk a few minutes later asking to talk. “Fixing Twitter by chatting with Parag won’t work,” Musk tells Taylor. “Drastic action is needed. This is hard to do as a public company, as purging fake users will make the numbers look terrible, so restructuring should be done as a private company. This is Jack’s opinion too.”

The messages also provide a glimpse into the relationship between Dorsey and Musk. Dorsey has that “Elon is the singular solution I trust,” but hasn’t publicly commented since Musk sued in an attempt to renege on the acquisition.

But in the newly released messages, it’s clear Dorsey has wanted Musk to take on an active role at Twitter for some time. Dorsey tells Musk that he wanted him to join Twitter’s board of directors long before Musk acquired a large stake in the company.

«Da vi fikk aktivisten til å komme inn, prøvde jeg så godt jeg kunne å få deg inn i styret, og styret sa nei. Det var omtrent den tiden jeg bestemte meg for at jeg måtte jobbe for å forlate, så vanskelig som det var for meg, sier Dorsey. "Jeg tror hovedårsaken er at styret bare er ekstremt risikovillig og så på å legge deg til som mer risiko, noe jeg selv var helt dumt og bakvendt, men jeg hadde bare én stemme og 3% av selskapet, og ingen dual klasse aksjer. Hardt oppsett. Vi kan diskutere mer."

Dorsey seemed to be referring to the activist investor that attempted Dorsey in early 2020.

Notably, this conversation occurred in late March, after Musk had a multibillion-dollar stake in Twitter, but before his stake had been made . He and Dorsey also discussed the Twitter cofounder’s belief that Twitter “can’t be a company.”

Dorsey writes to Musk:

Jeg tror det må være en åpen kildekodeprotokoll, finansiert av en slags stiftelse som ikke eier protokollen, bare fremmer den. Litt som det Signal har gjort. Den kan ikke ha en reklamemodell. Ellers har du areal som myndigheter og annonsører vil prøve å påvirke og kontrollere. Hvis den har en sentralisert enhet bak seg, vil den bli angrepet. Dette er ikke komplisert arbeid, det må bare gjøres riktig så det er motstandsdyktig mot det som har skjedd med twitter.

Musk responds that the idea is “super interesting” and that “it’s worth both trying to move Twitter in a better direction and doing something new that’s decentralized.”

The following month, Dorsey also attempted to play mediator between Musk and Agrawal, at one point arranging a call between the three of them. “You and I are in complete agreement,” Musk tells Dorsey. “Parag is just moving far too slowly and trying to please people who will not be happy no matter what he does.”

“At least it became clear that you can’t work together,” Dorsey later responds. “That was clarifying.”