Calling for advertisers to pull out of Twitter seems to be a proper exercise of free speech, not an attempt at destroying it. Then again, so is naming & shaming.
> Remember, the word blackmail refers to a crime wherein the threat is a revelation of information, extortion refers to a crime wherein the threat is either physical, violent or an unfair use of power.
"Theft by extortion. . . . if he intentionally obtains or withholds property of another by threatening to . . . expose any secret tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt or ridicule"
> Remember, the word blackmail refers to a crime wherein the threat is a revelation of information, extortion refers to a crime wherein the threat is either physical, violent or an unfair use of power.
I assert that getting people to boycott me because I don't buy his services would be an unfair use of his power.
And if you disagree, then please explain to me how boycotting Twitter or people who advertise on Twitter is bad...?
Yes, particularly his line how "Advertisers are not being manipulated by activist groups" convinced me that whoever Lou Paskalis is, he's either intentionally lying or willfully ignorant[1][2]. Either way, it proves he has no credibility.
So, just to be clear, you think Twitter (and by extension Musk and Tesla), along with GM, Audi, Mazda, Porsche, VW, and Ford are being manipulated by activist groups?
Or do you think it's more likely that GM, Audi, Mazda, Porsche, VW, and Ford don't want to give money to Twitter (and by extension Musk and their competitor Tesla), and they're blaming the boogey-man of "activist groups"?
He could be the Pope or the President, he said something ignorant and/or demonstrably incorrect and got called out. He's wrong, and if you believe what he said to be true, then you are wrong too. Facts are a thing, and they matter.
Facts are evaluated by collecting evidence. Congratulations, you found some evidence. But so did I. And you're willing to completely ignore the evidence I presented.
Facts are a thing, and it's worth deriving them by looking at the available evidence.
It makes me really sad to see someone who is absolutely convinced by the media narrative, who won't even look into other evidence.
You didn't present any evidence. You posted a screenshot of a tweet where somebody said something that is incorrect.
We know that activists target advertisers and investors. It's not just a fact, it is their stated goal and they have countless examples where their targeting accomplished their goals.
Many prominent birdsite people are US journalists, pundits, and celebrities. They thought that although social media are the Leopards Eating my Face Party, their faces would stay untouched, and it would just be the proles who were banned or shadowbanned or bullied off. Anyone who was on Photobucket or Tumblr or MySpace knows why this was not a wise thing to believe, but some people need to have the leopard actually bite them to believe it can happen.
A scary amount of 'news' in the USA is rewritten twitter threads with the origin more or less hidden.
So its as if the young people kicked off Tumblr had the mainstream media to amplify their complaints.
Definitely seems like more of reddit comment than a HN one. I had a laugh though so thanks and here's to more laughs until dang shows up and takes all the fun out of HN for umpteenth time.
The only forum I browse is HN. I gets high out of the quality of the conversation here. I think dang is requesting is to avoid redditesque humor. I don’t think we need ‘pulling out’ jokes, especially hinting at Elon’s personal life to make the conversations livelier. We can do better for sure.
I agree wholeheartedly. I have asked many to stop parroting reddit style "humor" myself to obviously little affect.
My point is that thoughtless Elon bashing is even more brain-dead and cancerous to genuine discussion then the cringey reddit-like tropes that he has an apparent issue with.
Its almost like the guy who spent $44 billion to buy an ad-funded social media company did not understand that advertisers and data buyers are the customers and users are the product. Its not rocket science!
I just DDG’d “brand safety conference”. Turns out to be an executive-class professional role.
> The Brand Safety Institute was founded to professionalize and advance the executive capacity needed at every company to protect their brands.
> There are certified brand safety practitioners at the world’s largest advertising agency holding companies, global 500 brands, and major technology platforms.
Makes sense that someone has to be responsible for making sure their brand not be associated with bad things.
Not the most diplomatic move but it's baller as. I like it. $44 billion on the line and he comes out swinging against his customers. It might actually work and have a massive impact on our our culture. On the other side it could burn Twitter to the ground.
This sounds like such a dumb and self-defeating response. Advertisers have pulled ads from all kinds of platforms before as a performative act. But if that's where the eyeballs are, they'll just wait a few months and come back. Striking back at them seems like it might prevent that.
Twitter's also far from being the biggest social media platform. I'm not sure how useful it is to advertisers going by the kind of ads I see. Barrons (sorry, paywall) says they only have about 1% of the ad market.
Probably doesn't help that the guy is taking advice from Jason and David Sacks (classic "oh you're mad at me? That means I'm right" personalities). The best thing Musk could do right now is find someone who does not have a twitter account (or doesn't care) and talk to them. Yet another case study for "don't just work with people because you are friends".
In behaving this way, he is erasing a tremendous amount of the goodwill he generated from his space and electric car businesses. The world's media, political, business, scientific elite are on Twitter and watching carefully.
It's all very upsetting to watch. I hope that, as you've said, he finds a better management team to fix this ongoing trainwreck.
Elon erased his goodwill when he started his crypto pump and dump scams. Or there's the whole vaporware thing to sucker in more investors. Or there's the fact that he argued Ukraine should concede to Russia's demands.
No, I'm pretty sure this is just another in a long list of mistakes by Elon. I don't believe he knows what he's doing here.
And when Elon decided to call a rescue worker a pedophile. To me that demonstrated that Elon was willing to truly destroy people for merely offending him on social media. He later double-downed on the pedophile claim by elaborating on his reasoning for why he thought the rescue worker was a pedophile.
Elon clearly never admits mistakes involving his ego. Same with the discussion now with Kasparov where Elon clearly didn't know he was fighting the Putin regime for a long time, but still doubles down on his mistake.
I think this turned a corner. He lost some credibility as a serious person with crypto pump and dump, and also with pedo guy, and with other shenanigans, but he had a trust fund of credibility from the other businesses.
This is one where his business acumen is under scrutiny too, that's a whole new game. But let's see, it's only the bottom of the first inning.
And in the process destroying so much. Twitter is going to lose most its value and be sold in a fire sale at some point. I doubt it will ever recover.
He’s destroying lives too. ~3700 Twitter employees got randomly fired. Maybe Twitter needed a haircut but 50%? Plus you know many of those people had spouses and children. Add that to the total. There are people whose entire income as software developers is for Twitter apps. If Twitter goes down they’re in trouble.
His other businesses are taking reputation hits by proxy (he doesn’t look like such a good/smart businessman anymore does he?).
And of course there are 40m daily active users. Even if only a small percentage really enjoy it that’s millions of people losing something they really like (like me).
All because he didn’t want to lose a $1B lawsuit and risk whatever would come out in discovery.
When this is over I just can’t see us ending up in anything but a net-negative for everyone.
If he doesn't ruin twitter I will be sorely disappointed. I have no care at all for the twitter employees, you may as well ask me to sympathize with Phillip Morris workers getting laid off because cigarettes fall out of favor. The sooner he crashes that whole company into a wall, the better.
I’m not. I suspect it would have proved some kind of real fraud on his part, or more likely perjury. And he knew if that came out he’s be facing slam-dunk prison time (among other things).
I think it was the first real consequence he has had to face in a very long time and it was a BIG one. And he was so scared this was the better option.
That’s the theory that makes the most sense to me. The breakup fee of $1B was a lot of money but seems like he’ll lose way more than that in the end on this path.
>All because he didn’t want to lose a $1B lawsuit and risk whatever would come out in discovery.
WTF are you talking about? In no world was there a $1B lawsuit. I don't know how anyone is possibly parroting that point given that it has been repeatedly debunked since it was first uttered. It's like someone read a contract, saw that $1B was mentioned somewhere in it and just decided that that would mean whatever the fuck they wanted it to mean. The lawsuit was almost certainly going to end with musk being forced to buy the company.
Ok, so maybe this is tin foil hat but maybe the 4d chess is to destroy Twitters relationship with its advertisers so that advertisers lose control of the platform and he can go ahead with the long term “free speech” changes. It is his and Jack’s vision, the only question is does he have the money to fund twitter until he can cut costs and raise money.
Yeah that’s 4d chess. Guy wanted out of the deal remember?
Guy probably thinks he can get away with whatever and misunderstands “every VC is addicted to Twitter” with “Twitter will always be used”, and can get the site running with a skeleton crew.
I mean honestly I think you can get away with a tinier team! But he’s doing so much that makes life harder for himself it’s hard to imagine this as anything but him being himself.
I guess in this tin foil hat theory, his investors would help him keep it alive while he cut costs enough to sustain it on membership revenues, or selling user data or some other yet to be unveiled monetization strategy.
I totally agree with you, I’m just trying to figure out what a billionaire and a bunch of his anti-woke billionaire buddies think they can do with a platform like this.
To their credit I think the network effects of twitter are in fact stronger than I’d like to believe them to be. I also think they themselves don’t want a “free for all hell scape” really, just enough to push some libertarian / longtermist / free speech ideology and hope that they can shape the countries narrative in their direction.
Oddly I’m starting to think this whole thing goes back to an old money vs new money struggle. SV wants to pull influence away from “the New York Times” crowd, but I think what they’re underestimating I exactly how unpopular their worldview is.
Why does he think anyone would be ashamed of _not_ advertising on Twitter? Twitter ads are worthless. If you're a CMO who manages to kill your entire Twitter ad spend, that should probably go on your resume.
This, and that default genre of emotionally retarded mocking of individuals and groups that goes over the line from "critique using humor" to just "making fun of somebody" (exemplified nowadays by pepe and wojack), are both hallmarks of the hyper-low-quality bickering the masses have always engaged in on the internet, often stemming from a disagreement about something petty.
Now, that style of interaction is common not just for adult children arguing about fantasy lore, but for public discourse about political and social issues, for the CEO of Twitter, for US presidents. In fact, it's not just common - it's popular, and many people see Elon's behavior (not just his executive decisions - his behavior) as a good thing (given the prerequisite perception that those targeted by that behavior are primarily members of their social enemy group(s)). Given this, I wouldn't be so sure about the scale of the negative consequences for Elon/Twitter.
I know - people have always been shitty and petty to each other about things like politics. But there's something terrifying about it reaching this particular tier on the immaturity scale.
Maybe we should boycott any advertisers on any surveillance capitalist platform. I'm only half kidding...I think.
I do recall having a bit of fun when I used to have a Twitter account (maybe a year ago) by consistently clicking 'not interested' (or whatever the label was in the UI) for every ad in my feed. After a few weeks, the system began to show me some fairly unusual and occasionally bizarre ads.
Edit: Actually, come to think of it, I wasn't just clicking 'not interested' but instead blocking the advertisers' accounts entirely. I remember thinking that it was kind of hilarious that doing so was even possible.
> Maybe we should boycott any advertisers on any surveillance capitalist platform. I'm only half kidding...I think.
uBlock Origin: make the web usable again.
A boycott implies intent that really isn't needed. Don't block specific ones because of political differences, block them all because they're overall seriously annoying.
>So the message is "if you advertise with us, we will try to sink you if you ever decide to stop". I'm sure companies will be rushing to sign up.
How can he not see this? With a single Tweet Elon made buying Twitter ads into a risk companies will have to weigh against any benefit from the ads. Literally threatening your customers.
I was convinced it was fake Tweet. He needs to hire someone to delay all his Tweets by 24 hours so he can sleep on them.
As I saw someone point out somewhere in the last few days, he can’t see it because he’s Elon Musk.
He’s rich and seemingly successful at everything he does. People fawn all over him. He has enough money to buy his way out of almost anything, and he’s been able to get away with insane stuff like naming Autopilot, testing it on public roads w/o any oversight, lying to the SEC, ignoring his deal with the SEC, stuff in his personal life, etc.
He seemingly hasn’t ever had to face real consequences. At least not since he was a child.
So he’s not scared of them. He doesn’t care. Doesn’t think about it. He’s always right because he’s Elon Musk.
So when he doesn’t get his way he doesn’t understand and lashes out (e.g. pedo remark over sub to help kids in cave).
And he was getting more fans! The right wing had started to embrace him! He knew what to say to them! More praise!
Then something happened. He screwed up massively. He jokingly(?) made an offer to buy Twitter with moronic terms. And based on what we’re seeing that probably would have gone badly.
But it got worse. The market dropped a bunch and now his high price was crazy. But he couldn’t back out because he agreed to terms preventing it! He lost a ton (stock holdings) and now had to overpay for Twitter or face a lawsuit.
And he seemed to be more scared of the lawsuit than wasting all that money and destroying Twitter.
It’s all consequences. And Elon Musk doesn’t know about consequences. So he’s responding to them like a 5 year old, lashing out. But that’s causing more consequences.
Advertisers/etc got nervous about his “no moderation” approach. Consequences. He tried to reassure them and pissed off all his new right-wing friends. Consequences. But the advertisers are holding back so now Twitter has less money (and new heavy debt). So he tries to raise money with the blue check thing and everyone gets mad. Consequence. Decided to cut a ton of jobs to save a lot of money. Now EVERYONE is unsure about Twitters future and advertisers get MORE scared. Consequences.
He’s not living in Elon world any more. And he can’t take it. It can’t be his fault. He’s perfect. It must be someone else’s fault.
He's replying to a GOP operative. I figured that once Elon sold Teslas to all the green Democrats he could, he'd flip hard right so he could sell to Republicans.
His real enterprise is a massive DoD program*, which requires Republicans to fund. Twitter helps him curry favors to earn these Republican backed contracts.
Mike Griffin is the ringleader but he's only useful when Republicans are in power.
There is a goal to Elon's madness, but it's unclear his ploys will pay off.
There are more than the launches up fo grabs.. building the satellites and platforms. The funding doesn't exist without Republicans in power. The decimation of Twitter moderation before the election helps.
The DoD program is a space constellation of ballistic missile defense satellites. They enable "improved tracking and potentially targeting of advanced threats, including HGVs and hypersonic cruise missiles".[110] " However, the Union of Concerned Scientists warns developments could escalate tensions with Russia and China and called the project "fundamentally destabilizing".[111] The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace later advocated for a treaty halting development to prevent an arms race in space.[112]
Starlink's military satellite development is overseen internally at SpaceX by retired four-star general Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy.[113][114] O'Shaughnessy advocated before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services for a layered capability with lethal follow-on that incorporates machine learning and artificial intelligence to gather and act upon sensor data quickly.[115]
Unlike at Musk's corporations, big corp mgt is all about managing uncertainty
Execs work to ensure success on big bets (new products/directions/++) by mitigating uncertainties & risks
Yet since buying Twitter, Elon Musk has done almost nothing but maximize uncertainty.
Of course they're stepping back
He may resolve much uncertainty about how things will go over time, and many will come back
But making excuses like "it's activist groups that are making them pull out" makes him look ineffective and whiny, and would he accept such an excuse from any exec reporting to him? They guy/gal would be out the door in a New York second.
And this? Threatening advertisers? Yeah, that'll convince 'em. With that one 30sec post, he's probably just convinced a half dozen to never return — if anything goes wrong with the relationship, he'll turn on them in a microsecond.
Why does he refer to "we" when mentioning making up for lost revenue? Is he referring to "we" as in a person invested financially in the company or as in a Musk fanboy who is apparently signing up for $8/month to help a billionaire and company?
Everyone involved in these tweet threads seems so overly aggressive and dedicated to this cause that, as a person who has never used Twitter, I feel like doesn't really matter. I don't particularly care that Musk owns Twitter but I do think he would be better off staying off the platform until he has a solid strategy worked out. The way things keep changing every couple hours seems stressful. I don't want this to come off as high and mighty or anything but I really think everyone (advertisers, Musk, his cronies, etc) just needs to take a break from social media for a week and come back to it with a clear head.
I know I’m not a big fish in the SF tech pond. I lead performance marketing/growth at my startup - spend a few grand a day across the typical channels. Seeing things like this from Elon make it nearly certain that my company won’t be advertising on Twitter in the foreseeable future.
I was actually considering jumping in while other larger corps were pulling out (better CPMs), but I can’t risk the act of advertising on Twitter becoming a brand liability, especially on the off chance that Elon publicly unleashes millions of followers in anger on my startup.
Elon is making a massive mistake picking fights with advertisers. It’s a new brand attack surface that didn’t exist last week.
Facebook and Google have provided homes for Farrakhan, ISIS, etc. and they're the two largest advertising platforms on the planet, yet Elon is a dick so that it as bridge too far?
It's advertising, literally the only thing that matters is public perception. If Elon dickishness makes public perception toxic that's all that matters.
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] thread[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CIGKxLcoso
A fair few historical examples of "nobody do business with X" have involved improper levels of coercion.
https://twitter.com/GoAngelo/status/1588696157794242560?ref_...
Think about some company that was just starting to think about advertising on Twitter.
And now Elon Musk is threatening that if you ever stop advertising with them, he will try to convince his followers to boycott your products.
hard sell, considering you clearly don't know the meaning of the word.
.
(Note punishments for certain content do count as a cost.)
"the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."
He's threatening advertisers so that they'll stay on the platform and continue to pay him. Why isn't that extortion?
"A thermonuclear name & shame is exactly what will happen if this continues."
Saying you will publicly shame someone if they do something you don't want them to isn't a threat?
> Remember, the word blackmail refers to a crime wherein the threat is a revelation of information, extortion refers to a crime wherein the threat is either physical, violent or an unfair use of power.
Generally no, that's not true. For example:
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/18/00.039.02...
"Theft by extortion. . . . if he intentionally obtains or withholds property of another by threatening to . . . expose any secret tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt or ridicule"
> Remember, the word blackmail refers to a crime wherein the threat is a revelation of information, extortion refers to a crime wherein the threat is either physical, violent or an unfair use of power.
I assert that getting people to boycott me because I don't buy his services would be an unfair use of his power.
And if you disagree, then please explain to me how boycotting Twitter or people who advertise on Twitter is bad...?
https://i.redd.it/a41q5e8ka0y91.jpg
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Giants
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/30/third-of-...
Or do you think it's more likely that GM, Audi, Mazda, Porsche, VW, and Ford don't want to give money to Twitter (and by extension Musk and their competitor Tesla), and they're blaming the boogey-man of "activist groups"?
Got it.
Facts are a thing, and it's worth deriving them by looking at the available evidence.
It makes me really sad to see someone who is absolutely convinced by the media narrative, who won't even look into other evidence.
We know that activists target advertisers and investors. It's not just a fact, it is their stated goal and they have countless examples where their targeting accomplished their goals.
A scary amount of 'news' in the USA is rewritten twitter threads with the origin more or less hidden.
So its as if the young people kicked off Tumblr had the mainstream media to amplify their complaints.
Which yes that's circular, but that just means it's path-dependent and potentially self sustaining.
My point is that thoughtless Elon bashing is even more brain-dead and cancerous to genuine discussion then the cringey reddit-like tropes that he has an apparent issue with.
> The Brand Safety Institute was founded to professionalize and advance the executive capacity needed at every company to protect their brands.
> There are certified brand safety practitioners at the world’s largest advertising agency holding companies, global 500 brands, and major technology platforms.
Makes sense that someone has to be responsible for making sure their brand not be associated with bad things.
The last time I enjoyed watching a money bonfire this big was Windows Phone
Wired: Kicking your customers
https://www.barrons.com/articles/twitter-advertising-ad-busi...
https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1588668007244759041 sounds like Elon was caught flatfooted, and his continued behavior is just another in a series of unforced errors.
Probably doesn't help that the guy is taking advice from Jason and David Sacks (classic "oh you're mad at me? That means I'm right" personalities). The best thing Musk could do right now is find someone who does not have a twitter account (or doesn't care) and talk to them. Yet another case study for "don't just work with people because you are friends".
No, I'm pretty sure this is just another in a long list of mistakes by Elon. I don't believe he knows what he's doing here.
“It’s at X that he lost me.”
This character trait will cost him a lot.
This is one where his business acumen is under scrutiny too, that's a whole new game. But let's see, it's only the bottom of the first inning.
He’s destroying lives too. ~3700 Twitter employees got randomly fired. Maybe Twitter needed a haircut but 50%? Plus you know many of those people had spouses and children. Add that to the total. There are people whose entire income as software developers is for Twitter apps. If Twitter goes down they’re in trouble.
His other businesses are taking reputation hits by proxy (he doesn’t look like such a good/smart businessman anymore does he?).
And of course there are 40m daily active users. Even if only a small percentage really enjoy it that’s millions of people losing something they really like (like me).
All because he didn’t want to lose a $1B lawsuit and risk whatever would come out in discovery.
When this is over I just can’t see us ending up in anything but a net-negative for everyone.
I think it was the first real consequence he has had to face in a very long time and it was a BIG one. And he was so scared this was the better option.
That’s the theory that makes the most sense to me. The breakup fee of $1B was a lot of money but seems like he’ll lose way more than that in the end on this path.
There was no $1B breakup fee.
WTF are you talking about? In no world was there a $1B lawsuit. I don't know how anyone is possibly parroting that point given that it has been repeatedly debunked since it was first uttered. It's like someone read a contract, saw that $1B was mentioned somewhere in it and just decided that that would mean whatever the fuck they wanted it to mean. The lawsuit was almost certainly going to end with musk being forced to buy the company.
Guy probably thinks he can get away with whatever and misunderstands “every VC is addicted to Twitter” with “Twitter will always be used”, and can get the site running with a skeleton crew.
I mean honestly I think you can get away with a tinier team! But he’s doing so much that makes life harder for himself it’s hard to imagine this as anything but him being himself.
There is a good chance Twitter will go the way of Tumblr - sold worthless for parts.
To their credit I think the network effects of twitter are in fact stronger than I’d like to believe them to be. I also think they themselves don’t want a “free for all hell scape” really, just enough to push some libertarian / longtermist / free speech ideology and hope that they can shape the countries narrative in their direction.
Oddly I’m starting to think this whole thing goes back to an old money vs new money struggle. SV wants to pull influence away from “the New York Times” crowd, but I think what they’re underestimating I exactly how unpopular their worldview is.
This, and that default genre of emotionally retarded mocking of individuals and groups that goes over the line from "critique using humor" to just "making fun of somebody" (exemplified nowadays by pepe and wojack), are both hallmarks of the hyper-low-quality bickering the masses have always engaged in on the internet, often stemming from a disagreement about something petty.
Now, that style of interaction is common not just for adult children arguing about fantasy lore, but for public discourse about political and social issues, for the CEO of Twitter, for US presidents. In fact, it's not just common - it's popular, and many people see Elon's behavior (not just his executive decisions - his behavior) as a good thing (given the prerequisite perception that those targeted by that behavior are primarily members of their social enemy group(s)). Given this, I wouldn't be so sure about the scale of the negative consequences for Elon/Twitter.
I know - people have always been shitty and petty to each other about things like politics. But there's something terrifying about it reaching this particular tier on the immaturity scale.
I do recall having a bit of fun when I used to have a Twitter account (maybe a year ago) by consistently clicking 'not interested' (or whatever the label was in the UI) for every ad in my feed. After a few weeks, the system began to show me some fairly unusual and occasionally bizarre ads.
Edit: Actually, come to think of it, I wasn't just clicking 'not interested' but instead blocking the advertisers' accounts entirely. I remember thinking that it was kind of hilarious that doing so was even possible.
Make ‘em pay…
How can he not see this? With a single Tweet Elon made buying Twitter ads into a risk companies will have to weigh against any benefit from the ads. Literally threatening your customers.
I was convinced it was fake Tweet. He needs to hire someone to delay all his Tweets by 24 hours so he can sleep on them.
Stoned off his duff, probably. He might sober up in the morning
He’s rich and seemingly successful at everything he does. People fawn all over him. He has enough money to buy his way out of almost anything, and he’s been able to get away with insane stuff like naming Autopilot, testing it on public roads w/o any oversight, lying to the SEC, ignoring his deal with the SEC, stuff in his personal life, etc.
He seemingly hasn’t ever had to face real consequences. At least not since he was a child.
So he’s not scared of them. He doesn’t care. Doesn’t think about it. He’s always right because he’s Elon Musk.
So when he doesn’t get his way he doesn’t understand and lashes out (e.g. pedo remark over sub to help kids in cave).
And he was getting more fans! The right wing had started to embrace him! He knew what to say to them! More praise!
Then something happened. He screwed up massively. He jokingly(?) made an offer to buy Twitter with moronic terms. And based on what we’re seeing that probably would have gone badly.
But it got worse. The market dropped a bunch and now his high price was crazy. But he couldn’t back out because he agreed to terms preventing it! He lost a ton (stock holdings) and now had to overpay for Twitter or face a lawsuit.
And he seemed to be more scared of the lawsuit than wasting all that money and destroying Twitter.
It’s all consequences. And Elon Musk doesn’t know about consequences. So he’s responding to them like a 5 year old, lashing out. But that’s causing more consequences.
Advertisers/etc got nervous about his “no moderation” approach. Consequences. He tried to reassure them and pissed off all his new right-wing friends. Consequences. But the advertisers are holding back so now Twitter has less money (and new heavy debt). So he tries to raise money with the blue check thing and everyone gets mad. Consequence. Decided to cut a ton of jobs to save a lot of money. Now EVERYONE is unsure about Twitters future and advertisers get MORE scared. Consequences.
He’s not living in Elon world any more. And he can’t take it. It can’t be his fault. He’s perfect. It must be someone else’s fault.
Begun, the conspiracy theories have.
His real enterprise is a massive DoD program*, which requires Republicans to fund. Twitter helps him curry favors to earn these Republican backed contracts.
Mike Griffin is the ringleader but he's only useful when Republicans are in power.
There is a goal to Elon's madness, but it's unclear his ploys will pay off.
* DoD program is basically SDI 2.0 as discussed in this link: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career
The DoD program is a space constellation of ballistic missile defense satellites. They enable "improved tracking and potentially targeting of advanced threats, including HGVs and hypersonic cruise missiles".[110] " However, the Union of Concerned Scientists warns developments could escalate tensions with Russia and China and called the project "fundamentally destabilizing".[111] The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace later advocated for a treaty halting development to prevent an arms race in space.[112]
Starlink's military satellite development is overseen internally at SpaceX by retired four-star general Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy.[113][114] O'Shaughnessy advocated before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services for a layered capability with lethal follow-on that incorporates machine learning and artificial intelligence to gather and act upon sensor data quickly.[115]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Military_capabilities
Also see: Strategic Defense Initiative
Unlike at Musk's corporations, big corp mgt is all about managing uncertainty
Execs work to ensure success on big bets (new products/directions/++) by mitigating uncertainties & risks
Yet since buying Twitter, Elon Musk has done almost nothing but maximize uncertainty.
Of course they're stepping back
He may resolve much uncertainty about how things will go over time, and many will come back
But making excuses like "it's activist groups that are making them pull out" makes him look ineffective and whiny, and would he accept such an excuse from any exec reporting to him? They guy/gal would be out the door in a New York second.
And this? Threatening advertisers? Yeah, that'll convince 'em. With that one 30sec post, he's probably just convinced a half dozen to never return — if anything goes wrong with the relationship, he'll turn on them in a microsecond.
Looks like massive flailing. Unfortunate.
Rule 1 of CEOing: it's always someone else's fault. Success is "We" or even "I", failure is "You".
(I assume that's sarcasm,because that's a sure way to lose the respect of your employees, costumers, and the market in general.)
I was actually considering jumping in while other larger corps were pulling out (better CPMs), but I can’t risk the act of advertising on Twitter becoming a brand liability, especially on the off chance that Elon publicly unleashes millions of followers in anger on my startup.
Elon is making a massive mistake picking fights with advertisers. It’s a new brand attack surface that didn’t exist last week.
Facebook and Google have provided homes for Farrakhan, ISIS, etc. and they're the two largest advertising platforms on the planet, yet Elon is a dick so that it as bridge too far?
Fascinating lol