Tech Talk: Twitter investors vote against re-electing Elon Musk ally to board – Gulf Digital News

Tech Talk: Twitter investors vote against re-electing Elon Musk ally to board – Gulf Digital News

Twitter Inc investors blocked the re-election of an ally of Elon Musk to the board at an annual meeting on Wednesday that avoided the biggest question for the social media company: will it complete a $44 billion sale to the billionaire.

Investors voted against Egon Durban, the co-head of private equity firm Silver Lake, who partnered with Tesla CEO Musk on his abandoned bid to take the electric carmaker private.

The rebuke of Durban, who joined the board in 2020, comes as uncertainty looms over the deal.

Musk tweeted on May 13 that the Twitter deal was "temporarily on hold" while he sought more information about the proportion of fake accounts on Twitter.

The company last week said it remained committed to the deal at the agreed price and on Wednesday said it would not answer questions about the deal at the virtual meeting.

"The Twitter board has not embraced Elon Musk and his vision for Twitter. So the fact that his ally has been removed from the board is not surprising," said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.

Twitter's board initially voted to adopt a poison pill that limited Musk's ability to raise his stake in the company, but later