I have seen worse PR releases, I haven't seen worse PR releases from a company of this size and profile.

There is some kind of irony in a communication platform offering a presser that contains so little information and so many words...particularly as the platform limits the number of characters that users can communicate.

Really earning that $30m/year. I would fuck up an important press release for half that price.

It's just the CEO making nice nice with everyone, don't overthink it.

> particularly as the platform limits the number of characters that users can communicate.

The irony of them sharing it as an image!

Common on Twitter.

Those beliefs occurred at different times (one is past tense, one is present tense.) And only two significant events are cited as happening between them: a background check and Elon deciding not to join the board. Either the basis of the change in belief is “whatever Elon wants is best”, that implies a background check problem.

I personally read it as: It was for the best that we offered a seat, luckily he refused.

Like anyone is going to believe that. It is like getting an offer on your house and saying that you think it is a great offer, then on the way to sign the contract the buyer says they want to cancel and then you say "yes great, I wanted you to cancel at the last minute"

Renting would be a better analogy...

Anyway; I am not an expert, but being on the board of director of a company come with specific responsibilities, like an obligation not to trash talk the company in public forums.

From an external point of view it looks like Elon might prefer the stick to the carrot in relation to changing how twitter works.

Both Elon and the CEO know this but the board all but must offer a seat to the biggest shareholder. So the best thing happened for everyone, Elon was blessed with acceptance and the board did not gain a member prone to PR chaos.

Or that the CEO always believes what the majority share holder believes at the time they hold that belief.

Largest, not majority.

Musk is not majority shareholder.

Joining the board "the best path forward", whereas not joining was "the best".

From this we can deduce that the destination of the "the best path forward" was for him to leave the board ("the best").

Thank you for providing a total ordering for the algebra of press releases.

Get him on the board to stifle his options and prevent him from negatively impacting the company through 'press release' would have a been their path forward, no doubt.

Seems he already knew that much at least

Both could be factually true at those points in time. On Tuesday they thought this was good idea. Interacting with Elon and market reactions in the next few days could have convinced them that best idea was not to have him.

And actually at the same point of time: It can be best to offer him the position and for him to decline. Better then not offering the position, or him accepting.

Well that would be better if he turned down when it was offered, he accepted and retracted 2 days later .

Basically Elon is the largest shareholder. If he wants to join the board, that is best for Twitter and Elon.

If he doesn’t want to, that is also best. Whatever he wants is best because he is the biggest shareholder.

I personally can't see how it would be best for either party.

Elon I would imagine is way too busy with his other concerns to be distracted by a social media company, even though at the moment it does seem to carry an oversized amount of influence.

And Elon's brand is probably too randomly 'firecracker' for a company that's probably already attracting scrutiny from governments across the world due to the above mentioned outsized influence it has on discourse and opinion.

The first and second paragraphs contradict each other. Assuming of course that we ignore the time and events that separate them.

Not to mention hidden variables. i.e. him joining (on their terms) would be best for Twitter in the future (as his influence would be limited), him not joining (on his terms) would be best right now (as his influence is limited).

I mean eating cake is best thing I want to do but not eating cake is also the best thing I can do.

Aka corporate talk that absolutely means nothing.

Before, they believed it was for the best. Now, after certain events, some of which are spelled out in the tweet, they believe the other.

Both are completely valid and do not contradict one another. And it's quite normal and acceptable to change your mind after you get more information.

I think Foo is true. Let's see! I think Foo is not true after seeing new facts.

Yea definitely, still feels poorly written though.

The word "had" would have been useful.

> they believed it was best for Elon

The way I understand it, they believed it was best for twitter (since as a fiduciary he would 'have to act in the interests of the company)

I'm inclined to agree that this is the correct parsing. Elon joining == best for Twitter, Elon not joining == best if Elon doesn't want to [and maybe by extension for Twitter].

I’ve seen more irrelevant stories make it to HN’s front page tbh.

The first paragraph applied to the time before they performed the background check.

The second paragraph applied to the time after they performed the background check.

Uh, oh, Spaghetti-Os!

There is nothing Twitter’s background check will turn up that’s not already known. Musk is the richest man in the world FFS.