Messages between Elon Musk and Twitter boss Parag Agrawal have been published in a court filing. They reveal how the pair’s relationship, after a good start, went dramatically south.
In late March, it became clear that Elon Musk was interested in purchasing shares in Twitter – and potentially sitting on Twitter’s board. On 27 March, Parag Agrawal reaches out: “Hey Elon – great to be connected directly. Would love to chat,” he says. Elon Musk likes the message. “Perhaps tonight around 8?” he says. So far so good.
By 31 March, a hastily planned dinner is arranged near San Jose as the deal really starts heating up. The speed of development is clearly exhilarating for Mr. Agrawal. The world’s richest person is about to become a Twitter board member. Mr. Agrawal tells Mr. Musk he is “excited” to see him in person. Bret Taylor, Twitter’s board chair, texts Musk about the dinner.
“I think they were looking for an Airbnb near the airport and there are tractors and donkeys,” he says in a text. The location, he continues, “wins for the weirdest place I have had a meeting recently”.The dinner goes well despite the farmyard location. “Memorable for multiple reasons. Really enjoyed it”, Mr. Agrawal says. A few days later it’s announced that Elon Musk is to join the board.”
As the announcement goes public, all sorts of names begin to text Mr. Musk. Podcaster Joe Rogan asks Mr. Musk whether he is going to “liberate Twitter from the censorship happy mob”.”I will provide advice, which they may or may not choose to follow,” Mr. Musk replies. On 5 April, Jack Dorsey, former chief executive of Twitter, tells Mr. Musk that Mr. Agrawal is an “incredible engineer”, but that the Twitter board is “terrible”.
By 7 April, Mr. Agrawal and Mr. Musk are burnishing their coding credentials – the start of a seemingly beautiful working relationship. “I wrote heavy-duty software for 20 years,” Mr. Musk says. “I interface way better with engineers who are able to do the hardcore programming than with program manager/MBA types”.Agrawal replies: “In our next convo – treat me like an engineer instead of a CEO and let’s see where we get to.” “You got it”, Mr. Musk replies. On 9 April, Mr. Musk tweets asking why so few of Twitter’s most followed accounts tweeted very much. “Is Twitter dying?” he asks. This tweet angers Mr. Agrawal. Later that day he messages: “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, Id 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.”
