A Twitter shareholder lawsuit filed against Elon Musk on Tuesday over the late disclosure of his 9% stake has renewed attention on Musk’s stock purchases and now-abandoned board appointment. In addition to the issues the lawsuit raises about Musk’s role, there are separate questions about the actions of Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal and the board—in particular, when exactly the board initially agreed to Musk’s appointment.
A key question is when the board learned about Musk’s purchases. His disclosures last week show he was buying Twitter shares nearly every day in February and March, with his daily purchases often reaching well above a million shares. Public companies have ways of monitoring share activity, industry executives say. Given the size of the stake Musk accumulated, it seems likely Twitter executives or board members would have learned of his purchases before he disclosed them, they say.
