Dusseldorf The news not only surprised many in Silicon Valley at the beginning of the week: Tesla boss Elon Musk bought shares from the short message service Twitter for almost three billion dollars and rose directly to become the company’s largest single shareholder. Barely 24 hours later, it was announced that Musk was also moving to Twitter’s board of directors. The share price jumped more than 27 percent into the plus.
But in Silicon Valley, many are wondering what Elon Musk is actually aiming for when he joins Twitter. “Twitter does not necessarily fit into the corporate landscape that Musk has built so far,” says Stephan Scheuer, Silicon Valley reporter at Handelsblatt, in the new episode of “Handelsblatt Today”.
The synergies with Tesla and SpaceX are not great. “It’s more for Musk’s private pleasure that he likes to tweet and is one of the most important people on the platform,” explains Scheuer.
In addition, a power struggle between Elon Musk and Twitter boss Parag Agrawal is likely to be imminent on the board of directors, since both have different ideas about freedom of speech and have already clashed for this reason. “A conflict is inevitable,” believes Scheuer.
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Also: The federal government has agreed on an aid package for companies suffering from the consequences of the Ukraine war and the decoupling from Russia. Credit lines from the state development bank KfW, backed by a federal guarantee, are planned for the battered energy industry. Julian Olk from the Berlin office in the capital gives an initial overview.
More: Twitter CEO is the hardest job in Silicon Valley
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