Even Twitter's Former CEO Is Lashing Out at Twitter's Board as Elon Musk Attempts to Buy Big Tech Company
Elon Musk continues to rattle Twitter’s board, but last weekend he found an unlikely ally when former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey slammed his own company over its internal dysfunction.
Musk has, of course, been making overtures about buying Twitter out, so he can reinstitute a policy of true free speech at the social media giant. But the board has been working overtime to shut him down and eliminate any possibility that he might have influence over the company.
On Saturday, though, Musk got a smidgen of moral support from former Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey who admitted that the company has some big problems with internal intrigue and infighting.
Dorsey responded to a Tweet which alleged that Twitter’s board has a history of being “mired in plots and coups.”
The former Twitter CEO responded, saying, “it’s consistently been the dysfunction of the company.”
it’s consistently been the dysfunction of the company
— jack⚡️ (@jack) April 17, 2022
big facts
— jack⚡️ (@jack) April 17, 2022
But that wasn’t the end of Dorsey’s comments on the Twitter controversy. When someone quoted venture capitalist Fred Destin noting “Good boards don’t create good companies, but a bad board will kill a company every time,” Dorsey replied, “Big facts” — a comment that is easy to see as a jab at Twitter.
Amusingly, he even admitted that he probably shouldn’t be saying these things. When a Twitter user asked if he is “allowed to say this” since Dorsey is still actually on Twitter’s board, he replied with a simple, “no.”
no
— jack⚡️ (@jack) April 17, 2022
Certainly, Jack Dorsey is no free speech hero, and Twitter is a mess right now due to things he did when he had more control over the company. But the fact that he has just proven that Musk is right, even to this degree, is telling indeed.
Twitter’s current board has been desperate to prevent the SpaceX and Tesla chief from moving in and restoring free speech on the platform. So much so that they recently enacted a “poison pill” rule that would allow cheap shares of the company to flood the market to prevent Musk from amassing a larger, controlling interest.
However, Musk already signaled that he has other avenues to gaining control of Twitter despite the poison pill move the company’s board made last week.
In his TED Talk last week, Musk admitted that he has a plan B in case the board makes serious moves to block him.
He also explained that he feels that Twitter serves an important role in our society, but Twitter needs its ship to be righted to serve that function.
“I think it’s very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech,” Musk said last week, according to the Daily Wire. “Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square, so it’s really important that people have both the reality and perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.”
Q: “If in this case you are not successful, you know, the board does not accept your offer, you’ve said you won’t go higher. Is there a plan B?”
.@elonmusk: “There is.” pic.twitter.com/ax2Kcb8GEi
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 14, 2022
“It’s important to the function of democracy, it’s important to the function of the United States as a free country and many other countries, and to help freedom in the world more broadly than in the U.S.,” Musk insisted. “Civilizational risk is decreased the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform, and so I do think this will be somewhat painful.”
Freedom and democracy are messy. Musk knows this. In fact, U.S. history proves this. When the country was young and newspapers and pamphlets were the “public square,” the sniping and personal attacks even the founders committed against each other were vicious. And their one experiment with censorship, the Alien and Sedition Act, was an unpopular disaster that was quickly repealed.
America has already found that Twitter’s desire to destroy political free speech in favor of pushing the ideology of a single political party is a failure for democracy.
Unless we have the freedom to say something other people don’t like, we don’t have freedom at all. The founders knew this. And so does Elon Musk. So, how anti-American does that make Twitter’s board?
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