Jack Dorsey rips Twitter’s ‘horrible’ board in texts to Elon Musk

If Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey hoped to see a tradition change within the firm’s prime brass, Elon Musk would definitely match the invoice.

However the Tesla CEO’s first foray into the social media house might show short-lived. After placing a $44 billion deal final April to purchase Twitter, Musk has been trying to tug out of it since July, citing the unverifiable variety of spam accounts on the platform.

Along with his courtroom date set for subsequent month in Delaware, particulars proceed to emerge about these turbulent few months, together with Musk agreeing to sit down on the corporate’s board earlier than abruptly altering his thoughts and opting as a substitute to purchase out all of Twitter’s remaining shares to take the corporate non-public.

Musk made it clear that if he had change into the only proprietor of Twitter—or, now, if a decide compels him to undergo with the acquisition anyway—he would result in some massive adjustments to the social media community and the way the corporate is run. And new proof reveals simply how a lot Twitter cofounder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, who stepped down from the corporate’s board final Might, needed to see these adjustments occur.

“The board is horrible,” Dorsey wrote to Musk in a textual content message, one in all many who have been collected and disclosed this week as a part of a pretrial discovery course of.

Dorsey’s textual content—dated April 5, the day Twitter introduced Musk as a brand new board member—spared solely firm CEO Parag Agrawal, who Dorsey known as “an unbelievable engineer.”

However because the takeover deal dragged on and tensions emerged between Musk and Twitter’s board, Dorsey made his true emotions about Agrawal and the remainder of Twitter’s board recognized in a collection of messages that criticized the board’s cautious habits, whereas portray Musk because the savior the corporate had been ready for.

Dorsey and Twitter’s board

In texts despatched to Musk final March, Dorsey revealed that he had tried to get him accepted by the board as early as 2020, which the board refused. Dorsey criticized Twitter’s board for being too “risk-averse” and stated they’d refused to deliver on a determine like Musk as a result of they felt it could create “extra danger” for the corporate.

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It wouldn’t be the final time Dorsey criticized Twitter’s board in his textual content exchanges with Musk.

On April 25, Dorsey defended Agrawal as being “nice at getting issues completed when tasked with particular path,” however the subsequent day, seemingly after a board assembly, Musk texted to Dorsey that the 2 of them have been in “full settlement” over Agrawal, particularly that the Twitter CEO had been “shifting far too slowly and making an attempt to please individuals who is not going to be joyful it doesn’t matter what he does.”

Dorsey answered round two hours later: “It grew to become clear you can’t work collectively. That was clarifying.”

Unpredictable Musk

As CEO and founding father of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk made a reputation for himself as a tough, unforgiving, and at occasions even rash boss.

Final June, Musk mandated that every one of Tesla’s white-collar workers return to the workplace full-time, warning that those that didn’t might “faux to work someplace else.” He expects lengthy work hours, willingly working for upwards of 120 hours per week himself, and as soon as allegedly labored a 24-hour day—on his birthday.

Musk’s distinctive management model has gotten him into sizzling water together with his personal firms at occasions. A single foray on Twitter can ship Tesla inventory costs plunging or cryptocurrencies hovering, and shareholders of his companies have even requested judges to muzzle his Twitter feed.

Musk’s unpredictability as an individual and as a boss left some Twitter workers involved final spring that him taking up would imply a whole tradition change, together with a return to the workplace and a extra demanding work atmosphere general.

However whereas Twitter workers frightened, Jack Dorsey seems to have been eagerly awaiting Musk getting concerned at Twitter for fairly a while. Final April, shortly after the takeover deal had been introduced, Dorsey closely criticized Twitter’s board, saying “it’s persistently been the dysfunction of the corporate.”

Per week later, Dorsey publicly vouched for Musk as the proper particular person to take the corporate ahead by first taking it non-public. “Elon is the singular answer I belief. I belief his mission to increase the sunshine of consciousness,” Dorsey wrote.

This story was initially featured on Fortune.com