Company not held hostage by Elon Musk offer, says Twitter CEO

San Francisco, April 14

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal sought to reassure employees during an all-hands meeting on Thursday that the company was not being “held hostage” by news of Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company, a source familiar with the matter said.

As Agrawal took questions from staff that were posted on the company’s Slack messaging service, he encouraged employees to remain focused and told them “we as employees control what happens,” said the source, who did not want to be identified because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.

The meeting came after news broke that the Tesla CEO had offered to buy the social media company for $43 billion.

Agrawal told staff that the Board was continuing to review Musk’s offer, but that he was limited in what he could share with the employees.

Earlier in the Q&A, Agrawal said he believed “Twitter stands for way more than one human, any human.” A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting. — Reuters

Must value critics

I have a strong point of view that people who are critical of our service, their voice is something that we must emphasise so that we can learn and get better. — Parag Agrawal, Twitter CEO