NEW YORK, April 30 — Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says ‘it all went south’ when Elon Musk purchased the social media company, saying Musk’s timing was poor and that he should have backed out of the deal, reported the German News Agency (dpa).
Dorsey was questioned Friday by users on his new upstart app ‘Bluesky‘ on whether he still believed Mus was the ideal owner for Twitter. Business Insider reported that he issued a flat denial.
“No. Nor do I think he acted right after realising his timing was bad,” Dorsey wrote.
When the US$$44 billion (RM196.2 billion) deal appeared to be falling through, Twitter’s board threatened to sue Musk to force the deal. Dorsey said the board’s effort to force the sale was also a bad idea.
“It all went south. If Elon or anyone wanted to buy the company, all they had to do was name a price that the board felt was better than what the company could do independently.
“This is true for every public company. Was I optimistic? Yes. Did I have final say? No. I think he (Musk) should have walked away and paid the US$$1 billion (RM4.46 billion),” he said.
Under his initial agreement to purchase Twitter, Musk could have walked away if he paid a US$1 billion break-up fee.
Since acquiring Twitter in October last year, he has drawn heavy criticism for a variety of new policies.
In addition to instituting sweeping layoffs, Musk has also started requiring people to pay for blue verification check marks, rolled back protections against hate speech, and until recently, had begun labelling certain media outlets as ‘government-funded’.
That latter decision was reversed after an international alliance of broadcasters published an open letter which called on Twitter to correct the ‘misleading label’ it applied to four foreign news organisations.
It is possible that these changes may have also contributed to Dorsey’s souring feelings toward the Tesla owner.
His comments were a reversal from last year, when Dorsey called him the ‘singular solution I trust’ to take Twitter private. He added at the time that Musk’s plan to make Twitter ‘maximally trusted and broadly inclusive’ was the ‘right one’.
Dorsey’s new site, Bluesky, is positioning itself as a Twitter competitor.
The platform has been generating buzz in recent weeks, as an exclusive invite-only alternative to the Musk-led forum. It was trending on Twitter last week and boasts some big-name converts like New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and model Chrissy Teigen.
— Bernama
