Elon Musk didn’t communicate at Wednesday’s annual assembly of Twitter shareholders, and he didn’t say something about it on Twitter. However, gosh, the man nonetheless managed to loom massive over the day. The musk of Musk—it’s a potent factor.

You might inform one thing was within the air from the 2 shareholder proposals put ahead by the Nationwide Heart for Public Coverage Analysis, a conservative suppose tank, and the impassioned feedback the middle’s executives gave concerning the concepts.

One known as on Twitter to conduct an audit into its variety efforts, which the right-leaning group says have gone too far and now discriminate in opposition to males and white folks. The opposite requested Twitter to publish a evaluate into its lobbying efforts, which the analysis heart, presumably, thinks will present Twitter’s liberal bias.

“Let’s treatment the DEI thoughts virus spreading inside Twitter,” stated a speaker from the suppose tank. He addressed his remarks on to Musk and referenced Musk’s latest similar-sounding feedback a couple of “woke thoughts virus.” By that, Musk means he thinks it’s silly for corporations to cave to the elevated consideration on race, variety and social justice during the last a number of years.

Twitter shareholders rejected each proposals from the Nationwide Heart for Public Coverage Analysis, however that’s not likely the purpose of discussing the proposals. Level is, they made into the assembly! They weren’t on the preliminary agenda. They had been a pair of late entries made after Musk disclosed his takeover plans for the corporate, which, after all, he now says he has paused, and his complaints concerning the enterprise, which do sound quite a bit like those voiced by the Nationwide Heart of Public Coverage Analysis. The proposals communicate to who Musk is chatting with and to the place he attracts assist. He might say he’d like Twitter to behave politically impartial, however there’s nothing politically impartial concerning the proposals put forth by the blokes name-checking him. Slightly, they’re deeply conservative. Ultimately, they’re a useful reminder that Musk’s politics are actually a quacks-like-a-duck state of affairs, the place his phrases’ implicit that means is what’s most necessary.

You might see Musk’s presence once more when Twitter tried to get present director Egon Durban, the co-CEO of Silver Lake, reelected, which Twitter shareholders had no time for. Durban misplaced reelection.

Durban joined the board in 2020 after one other Twitter narrowly survived a special activist investor’s curiosity within the firm. Extra pertinently, Durban and Musk are buds. Durban and Durban alone was the one particular person Musk spoke to earlier than his now notorious 2018 tweet about taking Tesla non-public; three days later, Durban turned up at Musk’s dwelling to speak by means of their choices about securing the funding Musk stated he’d already secured.

Twitter shareholders’ flip in opposition to Durban would possibly recommend they’re rising somewhat bored with Musk and couldn’t abdomen re-seating a high ally of his. It may additionally recommend they headed the warning sounded by ISS, a analysis agency whose studies typically sway the end result at shareholder conferences. ISS suggested shareholders flip down Durban however not due to his Musk connections. As an alternative, ISS based mostly its case round the truth that Durban’s a busy man. He sits on 5 company boards—Dell, Intelsat, Motorola, WME and Twitter—which suggests Twitter at most receives solely divided consideration from Durban, who can be, after all, managing the funding operations behind $79 billion-in-assets Silver Lake. Tons happening! And with all the pieces happening simply at Twitter, perhaps the shareholders made the wise name.

And you would see Musk once more plainly within the shareholders’ determination to reject a proposal to vary the construction of Twitter’s board, one the corporate supported. As Twitter’s governance at present works, the administrators serve staggered phrases. What this implies is an outdoor investor (like a Musk) can’t sweep into city and substitute the board in a single fell swoop, since only some administrators stand for election annually. (At some corporations, each director stands for election annually.) The skin investor (like Musk) must hold on for a pair years to totally restock the board. You would possibly learn Twitter shareholders’ determination to quash this movement as a sign they’re completed with Musk and are dropping curiosity in his bid. On the very least, it signifies they’re not an motion that’s somewhat like eradicating the deadbolt from a entrance door. Straightforward that option to enter—simpler for Musk (or somebody like him sooner or later) to push a takeover bid by means of.

(Now, in a short time, right here’s what shareholders did approve on the assembly: two proposals that can require Twitter to doc how its makes use of concealment clauses, a tactic to silence departing workers, and semiannual studies about how its company funds would possibly affect elections. The corporate had opposed each measures.)

Formally, CEO Parag Agrawal and the opposite Twitter executives declined to speak about Musk or the deal, which Musk has stated is now “on maintain” over issues Twitter misstated estimates about spam accounts. Fats probability they had been getting by means of the assembly’s question-and-answer part with out getting requested one thing, although. And positive sufficient, one investor, innocuously sufficient, requested what occurs to a public shareholder’s inventory in an organization when it’s purchased and brought non-public. Nope! They may not even speak about that, the Twitter executives stated. (It’s not a tough reply to offer. The shareholder wouldn’t personal them anymore. If Musk’s buyout occurred, they’d get a test for $54.20 a share within the mail. …Except they’re a giant, huge shareholder, like, say, a Prince Alwaleed. Then Musk will completely allow them to hold onto these shares as a result of he needs extra huge traders to hitch him in his loopy takeover, decreasing how a lot of his Tesla fortune will get tied to it.)

Someday sooner or later, we might undergo this train once more with Twitter calling one other assembly for traders to vote on Musk’s buyout. (Formally, this’ll be termed a “particular shareholder assembly,” because the firm definitely doesn’t wish to make buyout proposals into an annual factor.) After all, this assumes neither Twitter nor Musk will by some means scotch the deal earlier than then. But when they don’t, and we do get one other shareholder assembly, Musk gained’t be some hovering shadow then. He’ll be the primary occasion.