Elon Musk says the interests of Twitter’s board members are ‘simply not aligned with shareholders’ as the company continues its push to prevent a takeover by the billionaire

• Elon Musk says the economic interests of Twitter’s board member’s are “simply not aligned with shareholders.”
• Musk is Twitter’s largest individual shareholder and made a $43 billion offer to buy the company.
• Twitter pushed back by adopting a “poison pill” defense to prevent a hostile takeover. 

Elon Musk says Twitter board members don’t see eye to eye with shareholders like him.

The Tesla CEO wrote in a tweet on Saturday that the “economic interests” of Twitter’s board are “simply not aligned with shareholders.” The tweet comes as the company tries to block Musk’s $43 million takeover bid, the culmination of a tumultuous week that included the announcement that the billionaire had decided against joining Twitter’s board after he was appointed earlier this month. 

“Wow, with Jack departing, the Twitter board collectively owns almost no shares! Objectively, their economic interests are simply not aligned with shareholders,” Musk wrote, referring to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who stepped down as CEO in November.

The tweet was a response to a user who pointed out that Twitter’s current board members collectively own relatively few shares of the company. 

“Elon Musk is in for a bad time,” the user wrote. “I’m not sure he’s prepared to take on a couple PhDs, a few MBAs, and a Baroness who use Twitter once a year (to reset their passwords) and collectively own 77 shares of the company.”

Musk is Twitter’s largest individual shareholder after he recently acquired a 9.2% stake in the company, amounting to roughly 73 million shares. Twitter subsequently announced Musk would join its board of directors, before ultimately walking back the news just a few days later.

Shortly after, Musk made an offer to buy Twitter outright for $54.20 per share, valuing the company at around $43 billion.

Twitter’s board has since adopted a “poison pill” defense, also known as a shareholder rights plan, which is used to avoid hostile takeovers. The tactic would work by increasing the number of shares in the market in order to dilute Musk’s ownership stake, in turn meaning he would have to pay more to buy Twitter.

“It’s a defense measure by boards to increase the amount of shares and or give a discount to current shareholders so it makes it incrementally hard for a potential acquirer to go after the company because it’s prohibitively expensive,” Daniel Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, told Insider’s Gabrielle Bienasz.

Musk is the world’s richest person, with an estimated net worth of $251 billion, according to Bloomberg.