Elon Musk to participate in Twitter all-hands meeting Thursday

Twitter boss Parag Agrawal tells staffers they can submit questions ahead of meeting with Elon Musk, who has offered $US44bn for the social media group.

Elon Musk will participate in an all-hands meeting with Twitter staff later this week, marking the first time the billionaire will have spoken directly with the group’s workforce since he began his courtship of it in April. Picture: Ryan Lash/ AFP

Elon Musk is set to participate in an all-hands meeting with Twitter employees on Thursday, marking the first time the billionaire will have spoken directly with the company’s workforce since he began his courtship of it in April.

Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal announced the meeting in an email to staffers on Monday, saying they could submit questions for Mr Musk in advance, a spokesman said. The company’s marketing chief, Leslie Berland, will moderate the event, he said.

Details of the meeting were earlier reported by Business Insider.

Twitter and Mr Musk have been at odds for months. In late April, Twitter agreed to Mr Musk’s $US44bn ($A63.41bn) bid to acquire the company and take it private after he rescinded an offer for a board seat. Later Mr Musk said the deal was on hold over concerns about the accuracy of the company’s estimates of spam accounts on its social-media platform.

Most recently, Mr Musk earlier this month threatened to terminate the transaction in a letter accusing the company of not complying with his request for data on spam accounts. A Twitter spokesman at the time said the company was continuing to share information with Mr Musk and that it planned to enforce the merger. Twitter then told Mr Musk it would provide him with access to its “fire hose” – data comprising all tweets posted to the platform, according to a person familiar with the matter.

With Monday’s announcement, it couldn’t be determined whether the plans for Mr Musk to speak to Twitter employees this week means the two sides have come to an agreement about how to count the spam accounts.

Twitter shares – which have been trading under Mr Musk’s offer price, amid investor doubt the deal would happen – climbed close to 3 per cent in after-hours trading Monday following the reports of the all-hands meeting. They ended the regular trading day at around $US37, well below the offer price of $US54.20.

The Wall Street Journal