Twitter refuses to remove Egon Durban from board
The decision to disregard the shareholder vote is the latest corporate drama ahead of Elon Musk's proposed $44 billion takeover

Twitter has refused to remove Silver Lake co-chief executive Egon Durban from the board, despite the social media company's investors voting against his re-election at this week's shareholder meeting.
Durban failed to attract the necessary majority of Twitter investors on Wednesday after the two largest shareholder advisors, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, raised concerns that the private equity investor sits on too many boards. Durban has a seat on a total of seven public bodies, one more than last year, according to ISS.
After the vote, Durban tendered his resignation in accordance with Twitter's corporate governance guidelines.
However, Twitter said in a statement on Friday that it had decided not to accept his resignation after reaching an agreement that Durban would reduce its board exposure to a maximum of five public company boards by May 25 next year.
"The Board believes Mr. Durban to be a highly effective member and believes that he brings to the Board unparalleled operational knowledge of the industry, a unique perspective and invaluable M&A skills and experience," the statement said.
Along with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Durban was among the first people to be contacted by Elon Musk after he took a stake in the company earlier this year, the first step in a $44 billion takeover bid from the Tesla boss. Dorsey announced this week that he was leaving Twitter's board of directors.
As Twitter reported on Friday, a total of 43 percent of investors at Wednesday's shareholder meeting opposed Dorsey's re-election to the board, while 33 percent were in favour.
The filing states that the board believed the reason for Durban's rejection was "due to the voting policies of proxy advisory firms as well as the voting policies of certain institutional investors regarding restrictions on board work."
Twitter, Silver Lake and Durban all declined to comment.
The turmoil in the boardroom comes as it remains uncertain whether Musk can close the deal to buy Twitter.
Musk needs to raise significantly more cash than previously stated as the billionaire has decided to expire a $6.25 billion margin loan backed by his Tesla shares, forcing him to borrow more cash to fund the deal to bring up.
The Tesla CEO will need $33.5 billion in cash to complete the transaction, according to a regulatory filing published Wednesday, more than the $21 billion in equity required when the deal was agreed on April 25 were called.
Earlier this month, Musk said the deal was "temporarily on hold" pending more clarity on the number of fake or spam accounts on the platform. Twitter executives have stated that they intend to complete the transaction.
Durban's other board involvements include Manchester City football club's parent company, talent and media agency Endeavor, gaming platform Unity Technologies and Waymo, the former Google self-driving car company.
Durban has been on Twitter's board of directors since March 2020 as part of a collaboration agreement between Twitter and activist investor Elliott Management, which pressured Dorsey to step down as CEO over sluggish growth compared to other companies like Meta.
