Elon Musk, Parag Agrawal bonded over engineering before Twitter deal
1 min read 30 Sep 2022, 11:22 AM ISTElon Musk told Parag Agrawal that he had ‘a ton of ideas’ to improve Twitter.
PremiumElon Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal grew close over their shared passion for engineering, recently-released text exchanges show. After learning that Musk had acquired a sizable investment in the business, Twitter gave him a seat on its board but Musk thought it would be a waste of time.
Musk told Agrawal that he had “a ton of ideas" but he thought he was “pushing too hard". Musk texted Agrawal, “I just want Twitter to be maximum amazing."
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It apparently happened during the spring until the Tesla CEO tweeted in April: “Is Twitter dying?"
Agrawal questioned Musk about his public criticism of Twitter, calling the remarks disruptive and damaging to the business. Musk sharply responded that joining the board would be a “waste of time". He said he would “make an offer to take Twitter private". This conversation between Musk and Agrawal apparently soured the relationship between the two.
After Musk’s “Twitter is dying" tweet, he said he would not be joining the board after all. Later, Twitter disclosed in a regulatory filing that Musk had proposed paying $44 billion to acquire Twitter outright. After initially attempting to prevent the hostile takeover, Twitter ultimately decided to accept the offer.
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Additionally, talks between Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey are included in the text message archive. Musk's participation was welcomed by Dorsey, who praised him and said that Agrawal was an "incredible engineer" even though the board was "terrible".
Agrawal asked Musk to treat him “like an engineer" instead of a CEO as they worked through technical questions together. At one point, Musk wrote that he loved the conversations.
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The redacted text messages were submitted in court by Musk's attorneys after disputing a Twitter allegation that the messages couldn't be made public because they contained sensitive information Several of those include extensive redactions and are fully obscured. Contrarily, the documents containing the texts by Musk and Agrawal were not.
(With agency inputs)
