The past week has witnessed considerable speculation about the role Pretoria-born and raised Elon Musk is about to play at social media company Twitter. Musk, who is one of Twitter’s top ten influencers with over 80m followers, built a stake of almost 10% of the company through buying shares in the open market during the past few weeks. After his accumulation was disclosed, Twitter’s share price jumped 30% and its directorate invited the founder of Tesla and SpaceX onto the board. After initially accepting, Musk turned hostile over the weekend, tweeting up a critical storm. It emerged late last night that he has changed his mind and won’t be joining the board after all – opening the way for the world’s richest man to buy more than the 14.9% ‘cap’ for directors, and possibly launch a hostile takeover bid. Below are two pieces from the WSJ with the latest. – Alec Hogg

Elon Musk Reverses Decision to Join Twitter’s Board, CEO Says
Tesla chief spent the weekend tweeting criticism about the social-media company
By Salvador Rodriguez of the Wall Street JournalÂ
Twitter Inc. CEO Parag Agrawal on Sunday night said billionaire Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk has decided he won’t join the company’s board of directors.
The announcement of the reversal came after Mr. Musk spent a weekend tweeting criticisms, suggestions and apparent jokes about the social media company.
Mr. Musk tweeted about the social media company throughout the weekend. He asked his 81 million followers if they thought that Twitter was dying and pointed out that several top accounts, including those of artists Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, rarely tweet.
Other tweets seemed less serious.
“Delete the w in twitter?” Mr. Musk asked his Twitter followers in a poll.
Mr. Agrawal said that the board had many discussions with Mr. Musk about joining. Mr. Agrawal and the board were excited about collaborating with Mr. Musk but expected him “to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders,” Mr. Agrawal wrote Sunday night in a note posted on his Twitter account.
Mr. Musk’s appointment was set to start on Saturday, but, Mr. Musk “shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board,” Mr. Agrawal wrote.
Most of the provocative tweets appeared to come after Mr. Musk decided not to join the board. His weekend string of tweets started at around 9:30 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday morning.
“I believe this is for the best,” Mr. Agrawal wrote, referring to Mr. Musk’s decision not to join the board. “We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.”
Mr. Musk tweeted an emoji of a face with a hand over its mouth on Sunday evening. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The drama that keeps on giving,” one Twitter employee tweeted Sunday evening. Another simply tweeted a photo of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants lying face flat on the floor.
“There will be distractions ahead, but our goals and priorities remain unchanged,” Mr. Agrawal wrote. “The decisions we make and how we execute is in our hands, no one else’s. Let’s tune out the noise, and stay focused on the work and what we’re building.”
The social-media company’s newest board member said Twitter Blue should lower its price, ban ads and accept dogecoin
By Ginger Adams Otis and Salvador Rordiguez of The Wall Street Journal