Private conversations Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and Twitter CEO shared in lawsuit
During the lawsuit between Twitter and Elon Musk, private conversations of Musk were revealed. This shows that Musk discussed the fate of Twitter with founder Jack Dorsey, among other things. The company’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, also expressed his displeasure with Musk’s behavior.
Jack Dorsey. Photo: Joe Raedle/Staf via Getty Images
Musk and Dorsey talked about an open source version of Twitter via a chat service, such as according to the court documents. Dorsey, who is stored as ‘jackjack’ in Musk’s contact list, initially says that ‘a new platform’ is needed, after which Musk asks him for explanation. The Twitter founder then shares his vision for an open source platform, “a bit like Signal.”
Musk calls it a “super interesting idea” and offers his help to make it a reality. At the time of the talk, Dorsey is still a board member, but hints that he will be independent from May and could then start the new project.
A few weeks later, Musk is discussing a possible Twitter blockchain system with Dogecoin payments with his brother. “You would then pay a small amount to be able to post something on this form of Twitter. This way the majority of spammers and bots are fixed.” The lack of clarity about the number of bot and spam accounts on Twitter later became the reason that Musk stopped taking over the company.
Agrawal shares his dissatisfaction with a in a private conversation controversial tweet from Musk: “Of course you can ‘is Twitter dying?’ or whatever tweet, but it’s my responsibility to tell you that this doesn’t help me make Twitter a better platform, next time we meet, I’d like to give you some perspective on these internal distractions and how they’re doing makes us difficult to work.”
Musk responds: “What have you accomplished this week? I’m not joining the board [van Twitter]. That’s a waste of time. I’m going to make an offer to turn Twitter into a private company.” The conversation took place after Musk was nominated as a board member for Twitter and a few days before it was announced that this would not go through. Dorsey previously called a board position for Musk the “only solution.” whom I trust’.
Dorsey tries to calm the conflict by facilitating a phone call between Agrawal and Musk. Musk writes to Dorsey: “You and I are in complete agreement. Parag just works way too slow and tries to please people who won’t be happy no matter what he does.” Dorsey reflects: “At least it’s clear that [jij en Agrawal] cannot work together. That was enlightening.”
The turbulent run-up to the eventually accepted takeover bid turned out to be an omen for the later conflict between Musk and the social medium; after the acquisition was shut down due to an alleged misrepresentation of the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform, Twitter filed a lawsuit to enforce the acquisition.