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Elon Musk's Twitter strategy could be aimed at combating the ESG political movement that has infected businesses.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and a majority shareholder in Twitter, may be after more than just Twitter control. Musk's purpose, according to one CEO, may be to free corporations from an oppressive communist trend that has infected many companies.
According to the Daily Wire, Vivek Ramaswamy appeared on the "Morning Wire" podcast with John Bickley and Georgia Howe, where he revealed that Musk's recent denial of a board seat on Twitter is likely Musk attempting to own over 15% of the company, or a "hostile takeover" of the social media brand overall.
Ramaswamy then pointed out that Musk has openly stated that he dislikes the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement, which he defines as a "political ideology that states that firms are expected to take action to advance particular objectives."
Many corporate decisions to undertake social justice initiatives, such as environmental regulations that suit the church of climate change, diversity and equality quotas and focuses, and more, are due to the ESG movement. According to the Daily Wire, the ESG movement aims to gradually take over firms through political and social pressure until they effectively become message carriers for leftist politics:
ESG essentially acts as an end-run around the constraints of politics and lawmaking by targeting the market, “where people work, where they bank, where they invest” to achieve particular ends, Ramaswamy said.
He continued, saying that although much focus is on the non-investment angle of ESG, the issue isn’t that companies like BlackRock are “divesting from companies like Exxon,” it’s that they are “invested in companies like Exxon, and they vote for actually new boards of directors as they did last year, voting for three new board members, that changed the purpose of that company.”
This “is distorting the behavior of companies across corporate America,” he added, “in part because BlackRock and State Street and Vanguard, those are the three largest asset managers, they don’t actually represent the shareholders. They’re not the shareholder; they’re the stewards of other people’s money. Everyday citizens’ money. What makes the Elon Musk move really interesting is he’s showing up as an actual shareholder with his money. Now, the top shareholder of Twitter, who’s going to say that I actually, as the shareholder and owner of the company, want to see that company heading in a different direction.”
Ramaswami may be on to something here. Musk has openly denounced the ESG movement very recently, saying that the movement “should be deleted if not fixed.”
This was in response to Ark Invest director Brett Winton's criticism that ESG framework is backward-looking, prone to political whims, and more concerned with ticking boxes than genuinely assisting companies in making an impact. They seize board seats as a result of this pressure and begin to change the corporation from within, turning it into a communist organization rather than a business focused on its mission. It's a movement Musk vehemently opposes and may be aiming to stifle.
Musk purposefully declined the Twitter board seat he was invited to, as RedState reported on Monday morning, leading some to speculate that the entire purchase of Twitter stock was an elaborate troll designed to drive up the price of Twitter stock and make Musk more money, but it was later revealed that the board seat came with restrictions. Members of the board of directors could not possess more than 14.9 percent of the corporation.
Musk's refusal to accept a board position from Twitter was effectively a trap that Musk avoided. He doesn't want a piece of cake; he wants the whole thing.
If this is accurate, Musk will almost certainly take over Twitter and begin to undo and ruin the company's ESG influence. Furthermore, if he does so, he risks setting a precedent for other firms who may be swayed to oppose the ESG movement.
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