Her remains were first exhumed in 2015, the authorities said. In February 2021 they sent the remains to Othram, a forensic laboratory that specializes in using forensic genetic genealogy to help solve older crimes.
By September, they had successfully obtained enough DNA to begin building a profile and search for her living relatives.
A half sister of Ms. Sniegowski, curious about her family history, had submitted a DNA sample to ancestry.com, the genealogy website. Investigators said that they matched that sample to the DNA from the remains and, from there, were able to track down Ms. Sniegowski’s family.
“Now I know who Jane Doe is,” Don Lawson, who found Ms. Sniegowski’s body, said at the news conference. Mr. Lawson, now a Boone County commissioner, added: “It’s not just someone that I found in an unfortunate way. She’s a family member.”
Though Ms. Sniegowski’s body has been identified, the case is far from resolved.
“Now the work begins to find the lowlife people that did this,” Mr. Sniegowski said at the news conference. He added, “Anybody that knows my family knows that we don’t forget.”
Mr. Sniegowski, who lives in Dallas, said his sister loved to sing and was funny and athletic. At one point, she even tried out for the boys wrestling team, Mr. Sniegowski said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
“She was a fighter,” he said.
Mr. Sniegowski said his sister had left all of her belongings behind when she disappeared, a sign that she had not intended to go far.
A Republican state senator in Nebraska said on Thursday that she had been groped three years ago by a fellow Republican who is now a leading candidate in the party’s primary election for governor next month.
The candidate, Charles Herbster, denied the allegations from the state senator, Julie Slama, calling them “100 percent false.”
Ms. Slama issued her statement after The Nebraska Examiner published an article about the alleged incident, which she said had occurred at a Douglas County Republican Party dinner in April 2019.
“Today’s Nebraska Examiner report about Charles Herbster sexually assaulting me in 2019, when I was 22 years old, is true,” Ms. Slama said, adding that she had “prayed I would never have to relive this trauma.”
She said that when the news outlet asked her about what had happened, “I was not going to deny the truth.” Ms. Slama’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In February, she referred to the alleged assault during a speech on the floor of the Legislature, though she did not name Mr. Herbster at the time.
Mr. Herbster, who owns a large agricultural company and was endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump ahead of the May 10 primary election, said in a statement that the allegations were “a ridiculous, unfounded dirty political trick” being carried out by his political opponents in the state, including Gov. Pete Ricketts, also a Republican.
“For over 30 years, I’ve employed hundreds of people,” Mr. Herbster said. “I’ve respected and empowered women to run my company, my farm and now my campaign. Not once has my integrity EVER been challenged in this manner.” Later, he told a local radio station: “They did it with Brett Kavanaugh. They certainly did it with Donald J. Trump and now they’re trying to do it with Charles W. Herbster.”
Mr. Herbster’s campaign manager, Ellen Keast, issued a separate statement that “unequivocally” denied the allegations and accused Mr. Ricketts at greater length of being behind the story. Ms. Keast noted that Mr. Ricketts and Ms. Slama had political ties; she worked as press secretary on his 2018 campaign for governor before he appointed her to the Legislature the next year.
Asked to respond, Mr. Ricketts said in an interview: “Well, I would read the article. I have rarely seen an article on this topic that is so extensively corroborated by witnesses.” Referring to Ms. Slama’s decision to speak publicly about the alleged incident, he said, “It’s probably one of the most courageous things I’ve ever seen.”
Mr. Ricketts said that Mr. Herbster “should seek help and he should resign from his campaign.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Ricketts later said that the governor had learned of the accusations only when the article was published.
Mr. Herbster and the Douglas County Republican Party did not immediately respond to messages on Thursday.
State Senator Julie Slama in 2019, the year she said the incident occurred.Credit…Nati Harnik/Associated Press
According to the article, Ms. Slama, who was appointed to the Legislature in January 2019, was in a crowded ballroom at the Douglas County Republican Party’s annual Elephant Remembers dinner that April when she walked by Mr. Herbster. The news outlet reported that he then “reached up her skirt, without her consent, and touched her inappropriately.”
On Thursday afternoon, after one prominent supporter of Mr. Herbster was quoted on social media asking what Ms. Slama was wearing the night of the Republican dinner, she posted a photograph on Twitter with the message, “This dress is what I was wearing when I was sexually assaulted.”
In her February speech, Ms. Slama said, “Early on, when I got into politics at age 22 in Nebraska, I was groped at a political event by someone who was not a member of this body and not a current or former officeholder.”
Mentioning other instances of being touched or spoken to inappropriately, Ms. Slama said she often did not speak out about such experiences because “as a young female, you worry that it is going to be the thing that defines you.”
The Examiner reported that in addition to Ms. Slama, six other women said Mr. Herbster had touched them inappropriately at various events dating to 2017, and a seventh said he had kissed her forcibly. The women were not identified in the article, and The New York Times could not contact them to independently corroborate their allegations.
The Nebraska Examiner, which was formed in January, describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom and as part of a national group bolstering local reporting.
Mr. Herbster is among nine Republicans looking to replace Mr. Ricketts, who is term-limited. Mr. Herbster’s campaign has spent more than $4 million so far, the most of any candidate, though Jim Pillen, a veterinarian who owns a large family farm and was endorsed by Mr. Ricketts and Ms. Slama, has a similar sum in his campaign war chest.
Mr. Herbster’s campaign has spent $4.8 million on advertising so far, compared with nearly $3.7 million spent by Mr. Pillen’s campaign, according to Ad Impact, a media tracking firm.
During the 2016 election, Mr. Trump’s campaign named Mr. Herbster, the chief executive of the Conklin Company, to its agricultural and rural advisory committee along with dozens of other supporters. After Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Herbster for governor, Mr. Ricketts acknowledged that he had asked the former president to “stay out of the race.”
After creating a massive buzz about their affair and wedding, Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt finally tied the knot on April 14 in presence of their close friends and family members. They tied the knot in presence of close friends and family members at Ranbir’s Vastu residence in Mumbai. To note, Alia and Ranbir dated for five years before taking their relationship a step further. Their wedding festivities started on April 13. Bride Alia had shared the photos and since then, social media is kept on buzzing.
Their wedding photos and videos are all over the Internet and they are winning the hearts with their appearance as husband and wife.`Now, a video is circulating on social media from their varmala ceremony and it is everything dreamy. In the video, one can see that the bride and groom are surrounded by their loved ones as they perform the wedding ritual. Ranbir went down on his knees during the varmala ceremony for Alia. Later, he sealed his love with an adorable kiss.
Ranlia fans from across the world and friends from the Bollywood industry are pouring in best wishes for the newly-wed couple. Meanwhile, the nayi dulhan has received a warm welcome from Ranbir’s family. Ranbir’s sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahni took to her Instagram handle and wrote, “Couldn’t have asked for a better addition to our family! @aliaabhatt We love you and can’t wait to be a part of this incredible journey you both have embarked on! Welcome to the family my precious girl -But you always were a part of it.”
“A simple personality conflict, it does not disqualify an offer,” Mr. Pascarella said. “But if they are tying Elon’s personality traits to the likelihood of the deal happening — can you come up with the cash, and will the deal actually close — then that can very much be taken into consideration.”
Mr. Musk is the richest person in the world, with a net worth pegged at well north of $200 billion. But his wealth is mostly tied up in Tesla stock. As chief executive of Tesla and one of its largest shareholders, Mr. Musk owned about a fifth of the electric carmaker as of December. But Tesla limits its executives to using no more than 25 percent of their stock as collateral for borrowing, and Mr. Musk already has pledged a portion of his Tesla shares for other loans, according to company filings.
He could theoretically pledge the rest of his eligible Tesla shares to raise enough funding to buy Twitter. But Tesla remains a wildly volatile stock, trading between $766 and $1,145 in a matter of weeks — which would give pause to banks considering lending to Mr. Musk against his Tesla holdings.
Mr. Musk could also go to banks to help provide the $15 billion to 20 billion in debt financing that analysts say the bid requires, which would be added to Twitter’s balance sheet. But Morgan Stanley, the investment bank that is advising Mr. Musk, is not known on Wall Street for pulling together the kind of large-scale financing a purchase of Twitter would require.
Morgan Stanley could rope in banks with bigger balance sheets, like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. But a tense bit of history between JPMorgan and Mr. Musk could compel the bank to sit it out. Last year, JPMorgan sued Mr. Musk over a misleading Twitter post in which he claimed to have secured funding for his offer to take Tesla private, alleging that it violated the terms of a contract between the two entities.
JPMorgan declined to comment.
A third option for Mr. Musk is private equity. When he contemplated taking Tesla private in 2018, he famously brought in the services of Silver Lake, a technology-focused private equity firm. Silver Lake already has a connection to Twitter. The firm’s co-chief executive Egon Durban joined the Twitter’s board in 2020 after a $1 billion investment by Silver Lake.
But there’s a catch there, too. When it invested in Twitter, Silver Lake signed an agreement that severely limits its ability to acquire more than 5 percent of the company. That agreement could hinder its willingness or ability to team up with Mr. Musk.
I recently wrote about how international trade has made some Western nations — Germany in particular — unwilling to confront autocracy. Germany hasn’t just been weak-kneed in its response to Vladimir Putin; it and other European nations have stood by and even continued to provide economic aid to Hungary while Viktor Orban dismantles democracy.
In response, I received mail from Europeans to the effect that American democracy is also under threat and that some of our right-wing politicians are every bit as bad as Orban. Agreed! But that wasn’t the point of my argument. And while I’m quite willing to believe, for example, that Ron DeSantis would be Florida’s Orban if he could, state governors don’t have as much repressive power as rulers of sovereign nations.
Still, the comparison of European and U.S. ethnonationalists raises some interesting questions. In particular, as the G.O.P. has become a full-on antidemocratic party, why has it also remained the party of plutocrats and the enemy of any policy that might help its many working-class supporters?
To understand the puzzle, consider the policy positions of Marine Le Pen, who has a serious chance of becoming France’s next president. Her party, National Rally — previously called the National Front — is often described as right-wing. And on social issues it is; in particular, the party is largely defined by its hostility to immigrants and the alleged threat they pose to France’s national identity. On economic policy, however, Le Pen is if anything to the left of President Emmanuel Macron.
Now, it’s important to understand the context. France provides social benefits on a scale beyond the wildest dreams of U.S. progressives: universal health care, huge family benefits and more. Macron isn’t challenging the fundamentals of that system. He is, however, trying to trim some benefits, notably by raising the retirement age. Le Pen, by contrast, actually wants to reduce the retirement age for some workers.
I am not making a case for Le Pen. If she wins, the consequences for France, Europe and the world will be terrifying. But there is some genuine populism — advocacy of policies that might actually help workers — in her platform.
Compare that with the positions taken by prominent U.S. Republicans. I can’t tell you what the official Republican economic program is, because the party doesn’t have one — in fact, it has made a point of not saying what it will do if it regains power.
We do, however, know what the party did when it was last in power: It gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy, while almost succeeding in repealing the Affordable Care Act, which would have caused tens of millions of Americans to lose health insurance. There’s no reason to believe it won’t once again pursue anti-worker, pro-plutocrat policies if it regains control.
And recently Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who heads the Republican senatorial campaign, released a “Rescue America” plan that called for tax increases on the half of Americans whose incomes are low enough that they don’t pay income taxes (even though they pay payroll taxes, sales taxes and so on). He also warned, falsely, that Social Security and Medicare are headed for bankruptcy, without offering any suggestions about how to preserve them.
Senior Republicans have said that they don’t support Scott’s agenda, but haven’t explained what their actual agenda is — and have left Scott in his key campaign position, suggesting that his views have wide support within the party.
So everything suggests that the Republican Party is as pro-wealthy, anti-worker as ever. Unlike right-wing European parties, it hasn’t made any gestures toward actual populism. Why?
The answer, presumably, is that the G.O.P. caters to plutocrats, even as it attacks “elites,” because it thinks it can. After all, being nice to plutocrats and crony capitalists can yield tangible rewards, not just in the form of campaign contributions but also in the form of personal enrichment.
And the Republican Party doesn’t believe that it will pay any price for pursuing these rewards. It believes that its supporters will focus on denunciations of critical race theory and buy into conspiracy theories — almost half of Republicans agree that top Democrats are involved in child sex-trafficking — while not even being aware of what the party is doing for the very rich. After The Times revealed Jared Kushner’s highly questionable $2 billion deal with the Saudis, Fox News simply ignored the report, while harping endlessly on Hunter Biden.
I wish I could say with any confidence that this cynicism will backfire. But I can’t. In particular, Democrats who want to campaign on bread-and-butter issues are assuming that voters will understand who’s actually buttering their bread. And that doesn’t look at all like a safe assumption.
Ed Buck, a one-time Democratic donor and activist, was sentenced by a federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday to 30 years in prison for giving two men fatal doses of methamphetamine at his West Hollywood apartment, prosecutors said.
The sentencing concludes Mr. Buck’s extraordinary turn from a prominent activist to a predator. The two men, Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean, died 18 months apart at what the Justice Department had called “party and play” sessions at Mr. Buck’s apartment in which he lured and drugged men at his home, where they said he hosted sex-fueled parties from 2011 to 2019.
Judge Christina A. Snyder of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California sentenced Mr. Buck, 67, after he was found guilty in July 2021 of nine charges connected to methamphetamine distribution resulting in death, prostitution and maintaining a drug-involved premises, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a statement on Thursday.
Mr. Buck had faced between 20 years to life in federal prison, the Justice Department said last year.
Tracy L. Wilkison, the U.S. attorney for the district, said in the statement on Thursday that she hoped the sentence would bring solace to the victims’ families.
“This defendant preyed upon vulnerable victims — men who were drug-dependent and often without homes — to feed an obsession that led to death and misery,” she said.
Mr. Moore died in July 2017 and Mr. Dean died in January 2019.
Calls to a lawyer for Mr. Buck on Thursday afternoon were not immediately returned.
Mr. Buck’s victims were often Black men whom he found online or through his previous victims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He would inject them at his apartment with syringes full of methamphetamine, sometimes while they were unconscious.
Mr. Buck was a longtime activist who had donated at least $116,000 over his lifetime to Democratic candidates and groups. He became nationally recognized in the 1980s, when he was a Republican, for leading a recall effort against a Republican governor in Arizona.
He retired when he was 32, by his account, after having made a fortune in the insurance service business.
Questioning himself is something I have never seen Musk do (and do not expect him to start now). He likes to shoot the moon, as they say, even though this purchase stretches his own finances. But he has access to even more capital and also has a gaggle of rich friends who might like to own this unique toy. Given that most of his worth is in Tesla stock, which some view as overvalued, he could be putting shareholders at risk if he uses his holdings to finance a Twitter takeover.
Noting in his filing that he was not “playing the back-and-forth game,” Musk grandly declared in a gamelike metaphor, “I have moved straight to the end.”
What end will be the big question. On Sunday, after it was announced Musk was not joining the board of Twitter, I tweeted that “all bets are off.” And this is exactly what I think today, since it’s hard to know what someone like Musk will do at any time. When I told one of my teenage sons about the bid, he again snickered at the $54.20 price and then guessed quite seriously what might be motivating Musk: “He’s bored.”
Bored, perhaps. But not boring.
4 Questions
Cathy O’Neil is a mathematician, data scientist, author and former hedge fund quantitative analyst. She has written several books, most recently “The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation,” in which she tallies up the cost of society’s efforts to shame one another. I’ve edited her answers.
Shame has been around since forever. So why does social media make it any worse?
Social media shrinks our notion of community down to the friends we have on Facebook, who generally speak more similarly to us than the larger community. That means when we enforce community norms through shame, those norms tend to be much more rigidly defined and tighter, leading to increased self-consciousness and anxiety. Moreover, social media algorithms feed us exactly the content that is most likely to offend and outrage us, which conditions us to lob shame toward other social media communities, even if they’re only slightly different from ours.
We actually like shaming other people; it lights up our pleasure center. So, when we shame other people on social media, we enjoy it, and then we also enjoy the retweets or likes or encouragement from our friends. It becomes a habit to be as performatively shaming as possible for the attention.
I would note that historically, shame was useful to enforce community rules: Don’t hoard food in a famine, for example. The threat of shame was existential, because if you got expelled from your community, you could actually die of exposure. That natural and healthy impulse to protect our community has been hijacked by social media algorithms to simply shame for entertainment. Moreover, the platforms do this to us because they optimize to keep us on the platform, which is correlated with clicking on ads. They manufacture shame for profit.
Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. Credit…Laura Morton for The New York Times
Twitter’s board is considering a defensive move known as a poison pill that would severely limit Elon Musk’s ability to acquire the social media giant, two people with knowledge of the situation said.
The board met on Thursday to discuss Mr. Musk’s offer to buy the company, according to one of the people, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. The directors are weighing whether to move ahead with the poison pill — formally called a shareholder rights plan — that would limit the ability of a single shareholder, like Mr. Musk, to acquire a critical mass of shares in the open market and force the company into a sale.
The poison pill defense is a common tactic used by companies that want to fend off unwelcome takeover offers. It essentially lets the company flood the market with new shares or allow existing shareholders other than the potential acquirer to buy shares at a discount. This dilutes the bidder’s stake and makes buying shares more expensive.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Twitter was weighing a poison pill.
If Twitter’s board rejects Mr. Musk’s bid, he could put his offer directly to shareholders, rather than the board, by launching a so-called tender offer. If Twitter’s other shareholders like Mr. Musk’s offer, which is currently at $54.20 a share, they could sell their stock directly to the billionaire, allowing him to gain control of the company.
“It would be utterly indefensible not to put this offer to a shareholder vote,” Mr. Musk said in a Twitter post on Thursday. “They own the company, not the board of directors.”
But Twitter’s investors on Thursday seemed underwhelmed with Mr. Musk’s bid, potentially over concerns as to how he would finance it. While shares of companies typically rise when there is takeover speculation, Twitter’s were down almost 2 percent on Thursday.
Prince Al Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who described himself as one of Twitter’s largest and most long-term shareholders, said that Twitter should reject Mr. Musk’s because the offer was not high enough to reflect “intrinsic value” of the company.
Twitter’s other top shareholders, according to FactSet, include the Vanguard Group, the company’s largest shareholder, with a 10.3 percent stake; Morgan Stanley Investment Management, with a 8 percent stake; and BlackRock Fund Advisors, with a 4.6 percent stake. Vanguard and Morgan Stanley Investment Management declined to comment on Mr. Musk’s bid.BlackRock did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Musk turned down a seat on Twitter’s board over the weekend, leaving directors who had recently welcomed him to their ranks to weigh a proposal in which Mr. Musk said he had no confidence in their management of the company.
The board is made up of Twitter insiders, including Jack Dorsey, a co-founder, and its chief executive, Parag Agrawal, in addition to independent directors.
Bret Taylor, the co-chief executive of the business technology company Salesforce, chairs the board. Mr. Musk texted Mr. Taylor on Wednesday evening, making his intent to buy Twitter known, according to a regulatory filing. “After the past several days of thinking this over, I have decided I want to acquire the company and take it private,” Mr. Musk wrote.
Salesforce considered purchasing Twitter in 2016, but the deal never materialized. Mr. Taylor, who has been on Twitter’s board since 2016, joined Salesforce a year later after it acquired his own company, Quip.
Another key player on the board is Egon Durban, the co-chief of Silver Lake, a private investment firm. Mr. Durban joined Twitter’s board in 2020 as part of a deal the company struck with another activist investor who wanted to shake up Twitter’s management.
At the time, Silver Lake invested in Twitter and helped steady its management, preventing the immediate ouster of Mr. Dorsey. Because Silver Lake has helped Twitter out of a difficult situation in the past, Mr. Durban could face questions about whether his firm can double down and help fend off Mr. Musk.
Mr. Dorsey could also influence the decision. He is friendly with Mr. Musk and initially celebrated Mr. Musk’s investment in the company and decision to join the board. But Mr. Dorsey has often delegated major decisions to his team, preferring to rely on their expertise. And Mr. Dorsey is also set to leave the Twitter board next month, which could give him another reason to recuse himself.
His allies on the board are Mr. Agrawal, who was named as his successor late last year, and Patrick Pichette, a general partner at the venture capital firm Inovia Capital and the former chief financial officer at Google.
Mr. Agrawal and Mr. Dorsey have been closely aligned on a vision to make Twitter’s technology more decentralized, and Mr. Pichette has been a close confidant of Mr. Dorsey in discussions about the long-term plan for Twitter. Mr. Pichette may also have experience negotiating with Mr. Musk — he was at Google in 2013 when it considered buying Tesla.
Several hundred children ages 5 to 11 have died of Covid since the pandemic began, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but pediatric shots have been a hard sell for many parents. Only about 28 percent of children in that age group have received two doses and would be eligible for a booster. Roughly 7 percent have received one dose, according to agency data.
There was an initial rush for shots after they were first offered for children ages 5 to 11 in November, but the increase in the vaccination rate then slowed to a crawl. In the past month, it rose by a single percentage point.
Dr. Edwards said some parents felt that the chances were low that their children would get seriously ill, while the shots were an unknown. Some research indicates that 45 percent of children who get infected have no symptoms, she said.
“The problem is that we can’t predict who is going to get sick and who is not,” Dr. Edwards said. And among those who do get sick, she said, “there will be kids that are going to be hospitalized, and there will be a few deaths.”
Dr. Sally Goza, a pediatrician in Fayetteville, Ga., and former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said some parents saw no reason to act because they viewed the pandemic as having been quelled. “I’ve had parents come into my office and say, ‘Covid’s over. I don’t need to worry about that,’” she said.
To some extent, she said, parents have also been numbed by surge after surge of infections. “People are tired of dealing with it,” she said. “They are just like, ‘We are just going to take our chances.’”
The share of children ages 5 to 11 with at least one dose varies starkly by region, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study. Five of the top 10 states with the highest rates were in New England, while eight out of the 10 states with the lowest rates were in the South.
Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. Credit…Laura Morton for The New York Times
Twitter’s board is considering a defensive move known as a poison pill that would severely limit Elon Musk’s ability to acquire the social media giant, two people with knowledge of the situation said.
The board met on Thursday to discuss Mr. Musk’s offer to buy the company, according to one of the people, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. The directors are weighing whether to move ahead with the poison pill — formally called a shareholder rights plan — that would limit the ability of a single shareholder, like Mr. Musk, to acquire a critical mass of shares in the open market and force the company into a sale.
The poison pill defense is a common tactic used by companies that want to fend off unwelcome takeover offers. It essentially lets the company flood the market with new shares or allow existing shareholders other than the potential acquirer to buy shares at a discount. This dilutes the bidder’s stake and makes buying shares more expensive.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Twitter was weighing a poison pill.
If Twitter’s board rejects Mr. Musk’s bid, he could put his offer directly to shareholders, rather than the board, by launching a so-called tender offer. If Twitter’s other shareholders like Mr. Musk’s offer, which is currently at $54.20 a share, they could sell their stock directly to the billionaire, allowing him to gain control of the company.
“It would be utterly indefensible not to put this offer to a shareholder vote,” Mr. Musk said in a Twitter post on Thursday. “They own the company, not the board of directors.”
But Twitter’s investors on Thursday seemed underwhelmed with Mr. Musk’s bid, potentially over concerns as to how he would finance it. While shares of companies typically rise when there is takeover speculation, Twitter’s were down almost 2 percent on Thursday.
Prince Al Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who described himself as one of Twitter’s largest and most long-term shareholders, said that Twitter should reject Mr. Musk’s because the offer was not high enough to reflect “intrinsic value” of the company.
Twitter’s other top shareholders, according to FactSet, include the Vanguard Group, the company’s largest shareholder, with a 10.3 percent stake; Morgan Stanley Investment Management, with a 8 percent stake; and BlackRock Fund Advisors, with a 4.6 percent stake. Vanguard and Morgan Stanley Investment Management declined to comment on Mr. Musk’s bid.BlackRock did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Musk turned down a seat on Twitter’s board over the weekend, leaving directors who had recently welcomed him to their ranks to weigh a proposal in which Mr. Musk said he had no confidence in their management of the company.
The board is made up of Twitter insiders, including Jack Dorsey, a co-founder, and its chief executive, Parag Agrawal, in addition to independent directors.
Bret Taylor, the co-chief executive of the business technology company Salesforce, chairs the board. Mr. Musk texted Mr. Taylor on Wednesday evening, making his intent to buy Twitter known, according to a regulatory filing. “After the past several days of thinking this over, I have decided I want to acquire the company and take it private,” Mr. Musk wrote.
Salesforce considered purchasing Twitter in 2016, but the deal never materialized. Mr. Taylor, who has been on Twitter’s board since 2016, joined Salesforce a year later after it acquired his own company, Quip.
Another key player on the board is Egon Durban, the co-chief of Silver Lake, a private investment firm. Mr. Durban joined Twitter’s board in 2020 as part of a deal the company struck with another activist investor who wanted to shake up Twitter’s management.
At the time, Silver Lake invested in Twitter and helped steady its management, preventing the immediate ouster of Mr. Dorsey. Because Silver Lake has helped Twitter out of a difficult situation in the past, Mr. Durban could face questions about whether his firm can double down and help fend off Mr. Musk.
Mr. Dorsey could also influence the decision. He is friendly with Mr. Musk and initially celebrated Mr. Musk’s investment in the company and decision to join the board. But Mr. Dorsey has often delegated major decisions to his team, preferring to rely on their expertise. And Mr. Dorsey is also set to leave the Twitter board next month, which could give him another reason to recuse himself.
His allies on the board are Mr. Agrawal, who was named as his successor late last year, and Patrick Pichette, a general partner at the venture capital firm Inovia Capital and the former chief financial officer at Google.
Mr. Agrawal and Mr. Dorsey have been closely aligned on a vision to make Twitter’s technology more decentralized, and Mr. Pichette has been a close confidant of Mr. Dorsey in discussions about the long-term plan for Twitter. Mr. Pichette may also have experience negotiating with Mr. Musk — he was at Google in 2013 when it considered buying Tesla.
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