Musk Voices Support for Twitter’s Dorsey After Activist Clash

(Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk gave a public sign of support for Twitter Inc. co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey after an activist investor called for changes at the company including possibly replacing its leader.

“Just want say that I support @jack as Twitter CEO. He has a good heart,” Musk tweeted, using a heart emoji in place of the word.

Elliott Management Corp., founded by billionaire Paul Singer, has taken a stake of more than $1 billion in Twitter and nominated four directors, people familiar with the details have said. Chief among Elliott's concerns is the need for Twitter to have a full-time CEO, rather than one who splits his time between the social media company and mobile-payments platform Square Inc., as Dorsey does.

In a year where major news events are colliding, Elliott thinks Twitter needs the undivided attention of a CEO to oversee the role it plays in disseminating information, especially when new users and advertisers are flocking to the platform, the people said. When Twitter executives met Elliott for the first time last week, Dorsey didn't attend, people familiar with the matter said.

Musk, one of Twitter's most high-profile users, is a big fan of the service. When Twitter hosted a company-wide global retreat earlier this year in Texas, Musk joined via teleconference to offer his suggestions for how to improve the product. Specifically: He wanted Twitter to do more to label bots.

“I think it would be helpful to differentiate” between real and fake users, Musk said at the time. “Is this a real person or is this a bot net or a sort of troll army or something like that?”

Jack Dorsey Asks Elon Musk How to Fix Twitter

--With assistance from Scott Deveau and Kurt Wagner.

To contact the reporter on this story: Max Zimmerman in Tokyo at mzimmerman90@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net, Vlad Savov

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