My guess is Elon talked with the board in preparation to join it, then realized that when in private, they were all commies who opposed his ideals of free speech. He may have even suspected they encouraged all the woke twitter employees rage-quitting in protest of the impending Elon. Or, at least realized that the current board is filled with spineless slimes that fear the woke mob, and so bend the knee in fear that shareholders would oust them if they stood up to the woke mob at the expense of optimal quarterly profit.
So he didn't bother joining the board, and changed strategy. That's probably why he said "I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form."
Elon knows that sometimes a public company is the wrong format. Like with spacex - he once said if he made spacex public, that while the additional capital would help them accelerate, he knows that shareholders would not approve of his expensive and likely unprofitable plan to take humanity to Mars. But if the company is private, he isn't beholden to the masses, and can goto Mars and probably burn all the money he desires on it.
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