Andreessen’s position in Musk-Twitter bid units up Meta battle

A transfer by Andreessen Horowitz to hitch Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter Inc. threatens to create a battle for agency co-founder Marc Andreessen, who sits on the board of social-networking rival Meta Platforms Inc.

Andreessen Horowitz agreed to speculate $400 million within the Twitter takeover deal, a part of $7.1 billion in new financing commitments introduced Thursday. That put one of many greatest early backers of Facebook, which modified its identify to Meta final yr, in place to develop into a brand new proprietor of Twitter.

Firm co-founder Ben Horowitz mentioned in a tweet that Musk was maybe the one individual on the planet with the “courage, brilliance and skills” to repair Twitter’s issues and “build the public square that we all hoped for and deserve.”

Andreessen Horowitz’s involvement has raised questions in regards to the VC agency’s hyperlinks to Meta, the place Marc Andreessen has served as a board member since 2008. Though it’s not unusual for Silicon Valley buyers to have a hand in competing startups, potential conflicts might be extra critical with publicly traded companies, mentioned John Coates, a professor at Harvard Law School.

“It’s safe to say that Silicon Valley norms about conflicts — where they are often tolerated or even encouraged, in a culture along the lines of ‘it all comes out in the wash’ — are dangerous to carry over to the world of public companies,” he mentioned.

A consultant for Andreessen Horowitz mentioned it deliberate to hunt authorized recommendation to make sure compliance with any guidelines across the sharing of Twitter data with the agency.

Andreessen, 50, has come underneath scrutiny for earlier doable conflicts at Meta, comparable to investing in firms — together with Oculus VR — that Facebook ended up shopping for. At one level he was sued by buyers for advising Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg on find out how to shield his majority voting management even when he bought his shares.

On Twitter, Andreessen has been publicly supportive of Musk, and he’s railed towards the content-moderation insurance policies at social media firms. Musk has mentioned he plans to loosen the foundations if he takes cost of Twitter.

Since the investor doesn’t sit on Twitter’s board, his connection to Meta might not be a problem, mentioned David Larcker, a professor at Stanford University. “Although I know of no way to figure this out from public data, I would guess that many executives and board members trade in the shares of their competitors,” he mentioned.

Twitter, whereas far smaller than Facebook, is taken into account a Meta rival, competing for digital promoting {dollars} and customers’ posts. When Twitter’s board was evaluating whether or not to take Musk’s bid, they appeared on the latest decline in Meta’s valuation as a part of their deliberations, in response to an individual accustomed to the matter. They finally concluded that the billionaire’s supply was honest.

Andreessen isn’t the one associate at his enterprise agency whose present relationships might get extra sophisticated after Musk’s deal is accomplished. Vineeta Agarwala, a common associate at Andreessen Horowitz who invests in biotech and medical firms, is married to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. It’s unclear if Agrawal will stay as CEO underneath Twitter as soon as Musk takes over, however Musk has beforehand mentioned that he made his bid for Twitter partly as a result of he didn’t think about the corporate’s present management.

On Thursday, CNBC reported that Musk plans to take over as CEO for a short while after the deal closes.