Elon Musk's offer to take over Twitter could have an unintended impact on billionaires: adding another big company to his crowded scheme.
Tesla and CEO of SpaceX have offered to buy every share of Twitter they do not yet own - 90.8% of the company - in a deal worth nearly $ 43 billion, according to regulatory documentation released earlier on Thursday. The agreement will add one of the world's largest companies to Musk's portfolio of assets: Tesla and SpaceX are a trillion and multibillion-dollar company.
Musk also has two small start-up companies, Neuralink and The Boring Company.
Although Musk successfully buys Twitter and refuses to call himself CEO, he probably wants to affect the day-to-day running of the company, which could lead to a severe crisis for some of the richest people in the world. And while the management of the three companies at once is unheard of - Musk, who is the CEO of Neuralink, has already done so - the world's top three companies have suddenly done almost nothing.
Here is some good news for Muska: It's done sooner. The bad news is that the last known director to try to succeed is Carlos Ghosn, former CEO of Nissan and Renault and former chairman of AvtoVaz and Mitsubishi.
Ghosn actually played a major role in all four companies on the show and led three of them in 2018 when he was arrested in Japan on charges of financial misconduct. Ghosn fled roughly to Lebanon without an extradition treaty with Japan, where he now lives as an internationally wanted refugee. In 2014, Ghosn Vice President and Editor and CEO Daniel Roth said in an interview that the key to his ability to run multiple businesses simultaneously is to prevent multitasking. He said at the time that his schedule had been set more than a year in advance - and in whatever country he was located, he would determine which company to target.
"I don't combine different responsibilities because I just want to make sure that different management teams feel responsible and that there is no confusion between different companies," Ghosn said.
Musk may feel different. During a panel at SXSW in 2018, he said he effectively distributed his time among his various companies by hiring a strong team and spreading responsibilities to serve them. In this way, he said, "I spend most of my time on technology and design."
Take some time to lead Twitter: Co-founder Jack Dorsey served as CEO of Twitter and its next startup, Payments Square, from October 2015 to November 2021. Dorsey obviously has his own time management strategy: everyone blocks the same clock. week for management and staff meetings.
"I like a lot of repetitions in my schedule," Dorsey told the Fast Company in 2016. "It shows us how we're actually growing, instead of accidentally hiding it."
Surprisingly, when Dorsey first took on both roles, Musk recommended this decision. "I wouldn't recommend running two companies," Musk said at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in 2015. "It greatly reduces your freedom."
News of Musk's filing comes more than a week after the billionaire's status as the largest shareholder outside of Twitter was revealed with a 9.2% platform. The next day, Twitter offered Musk a seat on its board and warned that he would not receive more than 14.9% of the company's exceptional stake. Five days later, the company announced that Musk had declined the position.
In an announcement released Thursday, Musk - who has more than 81 million followers on Twitter - said his motivation to buy the company was to unlock Twitter's "incredible potential" to launch a "platform" of free speech words around the world. "
"... and I believe that freedom of speech is a necessary society for a functioning democracy," he said in a handover letter. "However, since my investment has taken place, I now know that society will not develop or serve this social need in its current form. Twitter needs to turn into a private company. "
On Thursday afternoon, hours after announcing his offer on Twitter, Musk told TED2022 in Vancouver that he was "unsure" whether his attempt would be successful. He noticed that there was a backup plan, but did not say what the plan was.