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 questioning if “Twitter is dying.”

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 a răspuns la mai puțin de un minut mai târziu. „Ce ai făcut săptămâna asta? Nu mă înscriu în consiliu. Aceasta este o pierdere de timp. Va face o ofertă de a lua Twitter în 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.

„Când am avut activistul să vină, am încercat din răsputeri să te aduc în consiliul nostru, iar consiliul nostru a spus nu. Cam acesta a fost momentul în care am decis că trebuie să muncesc pentru a pleca, oricât de greu a fost pentru mine”, spune Dorsey. „Cred că motivul principal este că consiliul de administrație este foarte retic la risc și a văzut adăugarea ta ca un risc mai mare, ceea ce am crezut că a fost complet stupid și invers, dar am avut doar un vot și 3% din companie și nicio acțiune dublă. Configurat greu. Putem discuta mai multe.”

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:

Cred că trebuie să fie un protocol cu ​​sursă deschisă, finanțat de un fel de fundație care nu deține protocolul, ci doar îl promovează. Un pic ca ceea ce a făcut Signal. Nu poate avea un model de publicitate. În caz contrar, aveți o suprafață pe care guvernele și agenții de publicitate vor încerca să o influențeze și să o controleze. Dacă are în spate o entitate centralizată, va fi atacată. Aceasta nu este o muncă complicată, trebuie doar făcută corect, astfel încât să fie rezistentă la ceea ce sa întâmplat cu 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.”