Skip to main content

Deck.blue brings a TweetDeck experience to Bluesky users

With over 3 million users and plans to open up more broadly in the months ahead, Bluesky is still establishing itself as an alternative to Twitter/X. However, that hasn’t stopped the developer community from embracing the project and building tools to meet the needs of those fleeing the now Elon Musk-owned social network, formerly known […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/TBbEAPF

With board’s dissolution, Elon is ‘sole director’ of Twitter

Elon Musk is now lord of the manor over at Twitter after the board of directors was dissolved as part of the merger agreement. While the state of affairs likely isn’t permanent, it does mean that as owner, director, and “Chief Twit,” he has what amounts to ultimate power to hire, fire, and change the social media platform.

In an SEC filing, the company detailed some of the many changes having to do with the controversial purchase of the platform by Musk:

[A]s a result of the consummation of the Merger, Mr. Musk became the sole director of Twitter. In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, effective as of the effective time of the Merger, the following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the Merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou.

You may recognize some or all of those names, and certainly the Twitter board was quite a who’s-who of Silicon Valley. But their watch is finished and the deal they squabbled over is complete.

This is not some unprecedented move in a private takeover of a public company, just a part of the process. The board of directors represented the former shareholders and now those shares are owned by someone else. It’s not rare for a board to be cleared this way, and new ones installed as a decision-making and advisory body adjacent to company leadership. That said, because examples of private takeovers at this scale are so few, let alone examples with comparable context, it’s difficult to say with any confidence what would be “normal.”

The result, at all events, is that right now Twitter has what amounts to a dictator, and that dictator is reportedly using that power to enact sweeping changes like company-wide cuts and charging for verification.

How Musk intends to structure leadership at Twitter is still something of a mystery, probably as much to him as anyone else, but as sole director it’s pretty much his prerogative. It may be that part of the complex and risky financing of the deal entails the installation of certain persons (or indeed kingdoms) in positions of real power and responsibility.

Of course Musk is not doing all this alone — he has reportedly surrounded himself with various cronies and operators who, though lacking any actual power as yet, are no doubt doing their utmost to influence the sole director.

With board’s dissolution, Elon is ‘sole director’ of Twitter by Devin Coldewey originally published on TechCrunch



from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/W8uIr4G

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ivella is the latest fintech focused on couples banking, with a twist

Money can make people moody. There are layers of privilege, or lack thereof, that can make even the simplest conversation about bills feel like baggage to deal with. Translate that discomfort to relationships and it can feel like an awkward — and fragmented — dance on who pays which bill when (and how). Ivella , a Santa Monica-based startup, wants to build banking products for couples to take away some of these tensions. Led by CEO and co-founder Kahlil Lalji , the startup is launching with a split account product that just raised $3.5 million in funding from Anthemis, Financial Venture Studio and Soma Capital. Other investors include Y Combinator, DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder and Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia. Lalji, who helped creators with digital content before jumping into the world of fintech, says that the startup was born out of his own frustration at the expectation that couples would just use Venmo unless they were married. The best solution, so far, has been joint accounts...

Apple tvOS 16.4 update gives light-sensitive users a ‘Dim Flashing Lights’ feature

Apple released the tvOS 16.4 update to the public yesterday, bringing various improvements to the system, including a new “Dim Flashing Light” feature. The new accessibility option can detect flashes of light or strobe effects and then automatically dim the display of a video. The “Dim Flashing Light” feature is notable a s it will likely benefit Apple TV users with light sensitivity or, possibly, users with epileptic seizures. According to the Epilepsy Foundation , 2.7 million Americans have epilepsy, and approximately 3-5% of them are photosensitive. Photosensitive epilepsy is when seizures are triggered by flashing lights, patterns or color changes. Flashing lights can also cause headaches and migraines. The tvOS update is available for the Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD. It can be installed manually by going to “Settings,” “System” and then “Software Update.” If your Apple TV is set to update automatically, then it should be downloaded already. The other updates weren’t as signi...

6 VCs explain why embedded insurance isn’t the only hot opportunity in insurtech

If you think embedded insurance is the only hot thing in insurtech these days, we’ve got a surprise in store for you: While it’s true that startups that help sell insurance together with other products and services are enjoying tailwinds, there are plenty of other opportunities in the space, several investors told TechCrunch+. You see, insurtech startups often need to take into account the myriad rules and regulations in place when they seek to innovate and embed insurance into products, which might make it difficult to pull it off. And given the current emphasis on achieving cost efficiency to extend runways in the broader startup ecosystem, it appears investors are open to insurtech startups that can build a sustainable business model, regardless of it including embedded insurance. “Insurtech startups that do not offer embedded insurance, and rather provide other innovative solutions will still attract VC funding this year, especially if they can show cost-efficient and sustainabl...