Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter and so many other companies, literally asked Twitter users, “Should I resign as head of Twitter?” And then he declared, “I will stick to the results of this poll.”
As a result, and with 17.5 million votes, people spoke up, and they said, by a vote margin of 57.5% to 42.5%, that he should resign.
Let me pause for a moment to quote former Twitter Safety and Trust Board member, Lesley Podesta, “The idea that someone make a decision on a company he bought for $44 billion by doing a twitter poll it’s amazing.” Well, it would be, except we see nothing Musk didn’t say or didn’t do.
Oh, and the Twitter Safety and Trust Council? Musk disbanded it.
I’ll say something about how Musk should quit while he’s in the lead. Except, well, he’s anything but forward. For all his rah-rah social media about how much better Twitter is doing, there’s no proof of that.
What we have seen is a sharp increase in right-wing rhetoric, hate speechand technical difficulties. We also took a look half of Twitter’s advertisers give up the ship. Even the World Cup didn’t help. Twitter’s US ad revenue is 80% lower than expected. Not being able to monetize the World Cup for Twitter is the same as Fox being unable to monetize Super Bowl 2023: Unthinkable.
Also: Personal Illusion: Do you really exist on social media?
Oh, and New blue Twitter? If you think that will make up for the depleted advertising dollars, I have a great bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
There is no mistake about it. Musk buying Twitter for $44 billion has always been a financially stupid move. But now, he is destroying the little value left by the company.
Do not believe me? Look at the profile. He fired more than half of the company’s employees as soon as he set foot in headquarters. Sure, fire C-level people. But half the staff? There are people who run the company’s day-to-day operations, developers and ad sellers. Oh, and with a company based on open source software, he has literally get rid of all open source programmers. A software services company without a developer is like trying to drive a Tesla without a battery. It may roll downhill for a while, but eventually, it stops.
In just the past few days, Musk has also laid off more employees. And, not just any employee. Right before the holiday, Mr lay off people from the infrastructure team who literally keeps the Twitter lights on and Tweets tweets literally.
But please wait a moment. Despite all his calls for heavy work, quitting working from home, cutting sick days and other vacation days, he still found time to fly to Qatar for the World Cup. What a guy!
However, Musk has found the time to tweet suitable alternate memes and jokes. He followed that up by firing Twitter executives who suggested it might not be a good move. He also more or less banned journalists on how angry he was at any of them at a given time.
Musk is running Twitter essentially on a whim. This is not the way to run any company, much less a way to depend on people feeling that they are part of an online community. Chaos and community do not mix.
While all of this is happening at Twitter, Tesla, Musk’s true crown jewel, has lost more than 60% of its value this year. If Musk really wants to succeed, he should leave Twitter and go back to running a company he knows little about. What’s happening at Twitter is an objective lesson in how to harm a company without anyone noticing.
So do what you say, Elon. Help yourself, Twitter, and others and do what you’re told: Quit.
But related story:
