Elon’s Latest Moves Highlight Self-Interest, Lack of Vision for Twitter’s Future
To be honest, I don’t see how anyone could still believe that Elon Musk has a great plan to revitalize Twitter, or that he could possibly be the “one-of-a-kind solution” to saving the platform, as once proclaimed by former CEO Jack Dorsey .
Because while Elon is considered by many to be a genius and has played a key role in making significant advances in various cutting-edge tech fields, his time on Twitter has only highlighted the fact that he is obsessive, unpredictable, self-serving and self-serving, on the grandest scale, what poorly reflecting his overall leadership across all of his businesses.
Take Twitter Blue and its $8 verification tick program, for example. Elon doesn’t care about leveling the playing field and/or allowing anyone to verify their identity, which improves the integrity of the app. Elon hates some of the people who already have blue ticks and he needs money so he revamped it as some kind of special deal to get revenge on those pesky elites who look down on the common folk from their decked out kingdom.
It’s worth noting that Elon is (or was) the richest person alive, the elite of the elite, and he’s selling you this story to make even more money. It’s a money grab for almost literally nothing extra – except more income for him.
Or what about his decision to ban all accounts sharing a live location after his young son was reportedly approached by a stalker? This decision had nothing to do with improving the platform or making it a more viable, fairer process. He was upset, he owns the platform, and he changed the rules for no other reason than to feel better.
Doesn’t that contradict his ethos of free speech, which he keeps ranting about in his tweets? Yes, yes it does – but what Elon wants, Elon gets.
Then there are the reports this week that old E was upset when his Super Bowl tweets didn’t get as much attention as Joe Biden’s. Elon was so upset that he launched an all-hands emergency to fix the imbalance, threatening engineers’ jobs if they couldn’t fix it.
The result? Elon’s tweets now appear in everyone’s “For You” feed, which Elon himself seems pretty happy with.
like what?
Why do you need so much attention? What past harms have caused you to seek worship and praise at this level? You have all the money in the world, you could do anything, but you spend your time making memes of yourself and forcing people to watch them.
For $44 billion. billion, with a ‘b’.
At the same time, Twitter continues to fracture under the strain of reduced oversight, including issues with tweet load times, issues with Twitter Blue edits, broken algorithms, ad account bugs, etc. Twitter itself is increasingly held together with the digital equivalent of packing tape — yet Elon sits in his office and calls across the production hall “Who is the prettiest of them all”.
I guess if you have the money it’s an open season – but surely even Elon’s strongest supporters are starting to question his leadership and the godlike view they have of him based on his past performances.
That’s a broader concern of Musk’s Twitter leadership — it exposes him for who he is and how he works, which clearly spooks Tesla investors.
But then again, according to Elon:
This is the highest first-quarter Twitter usage ever after most fake accounts were banned
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2023
Could this be true? We don’t know because Twitter is no longer a public company, so it doesn’t have to report its performance numbers. But Elon says it is. Maybe it is.
Either way, forcing all users to be fed their own tweets can’t be a good thing, certainly this isn’t going to go the way Elon expects, and certainly this is a red flag for anyone who still believes in their Twitter plan.
Perhaps. Probably not.
Either way, the Elon Twitter show continues to amaze and entertain.