Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey penned a scathing tweet over the weekend, calling the company’s board of directors a consistent source of dysfunction after Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused the Twitter board of failing to represent the interests of shareholders.
Dorsey made the remark in a Twitter thread initiated by Garry Tan, co-founder of Initialized Capital, who wrote that having the “wrong partner on your board can literally make a billion dollars in value evaporate,” noting that it’s the reason for a “surprising percentage” of startup failures.
Weighing in on Tan’s tweet was Tren Griffin, a former partner at private equity firm Eagle River, who shared an article on the impact of board dysfunction on businesses that cited Fred Destin, founder of venture capital firm Stride.
“What I do know for sure is that this old Silicon Valley proverb is grounded in age-old wisdom that still applies today: Good boards don’t create good companies, but a bad board will kill a company every time,” Destin was cited as saying.
Dorsey commented in the thread by saying these were “big facts,” prompting a user to say that the history of the Twitter board shows that it has been “mired in plots and coups” so intriguing as to merit a “Hollywood thriller one day.”
The Twitter board, Dorsey replied, has “consistently been the dysfunction of the company.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to Twitter for comment.
Dorsey’s remarks came on the heels of a statement by Musk, who accused the Twitter board of not representing the interests of its shareholders.
“Wow, with Jack departing, the Twitter board collectively owns almost no shares! Objectively, their economic interests are simply not aligned with shareholders,” Musk wrote on Twitter, replying to a post showing a chart of the ownership percentages of Twitter board members.
Based on Twitter’s latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the 14 executive officers and directors own 2.7 percent of the company’s share. Of the 2.7 percent, Jack Dorsey, the CEO turned board chair owns 2.4 percent and the others own only 0.3 percent.
By Tom Ozimek
