The last two weeks have been emotionally difficult for the richest man in the world.
Since Elon Musk finalized the $44 billion Twitter deal on Oct. 27, he's faced a mountain of challenges.
The biggest of them is to make the social network profitable. Musk started by cutting costs through the elimination of 3,700 jobs in one day. He also fired the CEO and the entire board of directors. Many executives have also resigned, while strong winds seem to be rocking the boat.
Indeed, the billionaire's biggest attempt to generate revenue is lambasted. Musk has decided to revamp Twitter Blue, the platform's subscription service. He has integrated the blue badge, which shows that accounts have been authenticated, confirming that the owners are who they claim to be.
Chaos
Musk has also increased the price of the service to $7.99. This move, Musk explained, will fight spam bots and fake accounts, as the cost will deter owners of bot farms.
It turns out that he underestimated the determination of some of the people who are against these changes. Since the launch of the new Twitter Blue on Nov. 9, many fake accounts have appeared. The people behind them are impersonating big companies and celebrities, and are posting negative messages. Musk and Twitter had to suspend new subscriptions to Blue since Nov. 11. It was still not possible to subscribe to Blue at the time of this writing.
There is also another issue: after displaying an "official" tag on the accounts of certain large companies, celebrities and institutions, Musk had the tag removed only to put it back 24 hours later. These erratic decisions give the impression of a lack of planning and direction.
The billionaire seems to also have downplayed the importance of advertisers, who represent 91% of Twitter's revenue. Declaring himself a "free speech absolutist," he went so far as to organize a poll asking users to vote that an advertiser suspending ads on the platform was against free speech.
He put extra pressure on advertisers by saying he would publicly humiliate them by disclosing their names to his millions of followers, in order to organize boycott campaigns. This hasn't stopped advertisers from pausing their ads, saying they want to see what content management policy he will adopt.
All of these misses have earned Musk negative media coverage. Since he took over the platform, the articles on the dysfunction at Twitter follow one another. For example, Bloomberg News reported on Nov. 11 that an information security team, which oversaw sharing of user data with advertisers and research partners, was laid off after the takeover, a move that triggered internal concerns about vulnerability to security threats and potential violations of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rules.
'Cars Guy Will Fail at Internet'
The Twitter saga has also affected Tesla (TSLA), the manufacturer of electric vehicles of which he is the great manitou. Tesla shares are down 41.5% since Musk made his takeover bid for Twitter on April 22.
"Now it’s about focusing back on Tesla in what should be a strong quarter of growth and momentum into 2023 with 2 million units the key bogey for 2023. Remain bullish TSLA," said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. "And ignoring the Twitter train wreck would be like having a fire in the kitchen and instead focused on finding the cream cheese for the bagel in the fridge. Now move forward (hopefully) and Musk refocuses back on the golden child Tesla."
The billionaire has just responded to his detractors. He reminded them that those who say today that he will fail with Twitter are the same ones who predicted his failure with Tesla and SpaceX.
Tesla is the electric vehicle manufacturer which dominates this segment of the automotive industry and is, by far, the world's largest automaker in terms of market value. The aerospace company SpaceX has relaunched the conquest of space and promises that humans will soon be able to live on Mars.
"It used to be: 'Internet guy will fail at rockets/cars!'" he responded on Twitter on Nov. 11. "Now it is: 'Rockets/cars guy will fail at Internet!' Literally from same media outlets 🤣🤣"
The tech tycoon seems to suggest he'll win his bet and prove his doubters wrong.
So the bets are on.
