Twitter Twit
As I write this, there is a very real possibility that Twitter could be gone before we know it, but right now - get out the popcorn and watch the insanity unfold. And start with reading the excellent article by Nilay Pital “Welcome to hell, Elon” in Verge.
First of all, I should say that I value Twitter and have been on it for 13 years - I use it daily for news recaps, to check the culture pulse and find favorite media & writer. It’s also the fastest for breaking news (who can forget when the Bin Laden raid was live tweeted by a neighbor in Pakistan?). It also makes me laugh, a lot, and certainly disgusts me too. All of these things are true, so as much as we have all joked it is a ‘hellscape’, I think we all do like having it. That is, until a certain eccentric, problematic billionaire seized control and is running it into the ground. Every hour there are new rules, changes, mass company firings, advertisers fleeing, and now mention of bankruptcy. Just because someone is a visionary and innovator, definitely does NOT mean they know the first thing about media, or how the platform actually works. What is the end game here? Here is the timeline:
April 2022: Elon Musk becomes the biggest shareholder in Twitter as the billionaire reveals that he has accumulated a 9.2% stake, worth nearly $3bn at the time, prompting market speculation that a takeover bid could be in the offing. Twitter announces it is appointing Musk to its board, but he later says he won’t, and starts floating the option to buy it
April 2022: Elon Musk becomes the biggest shareholder in Twitter as the billionaire reveals that he has accumulated a 9.2% stake, worth nearly $3bn at the time, prompting market speculation that a takeover bid could be in the offing. Twitter announces it is appointing Musk to its board, but he later says he won’t, and starts floating the option to buy it
October 2022: The richest person (and one of the craziest) in the world said he wanted to own one of the most popular social media platforms -- until he said he didn't. In early October, he reversed course again which is likely from pressure from financial rules, saying he wanted to complete the deal.
On Oct. 28, he finally did. Tesla CEO Elon Musk completed a deal to acquire Twitter at his original offer price of $54.20 a share at a total cost of roughly $44 billion.
He shows up day one carrying a sink as a dumb joke, and then the mass layoffs begin, basically 50% - many are critical teams that he needs and there are rumors he is scrambling to bring some back.
Advertising meeting with Musk goes so badly, that some of them pull sales spots during the meeting
Ugly, racist bots and lowlifes test the safety monitoring and flood the feed with vile statements
More leadership quit, so it’s really going off the rails
Musk starts claiming that he will start charging blue check people $20 a month to keep it. People laugh at that, so he suggests $8 (crickets)
For someone who claimed he was bringing comedy back (?), he starts lashing out at people making fun of him, or changing name to his with funny tweets. Claims anyone not stating it is parody will get suspended, but he’s so mad he starts doing it to people following the rules anyway.
Verification gets murky. He thinks everyone should have it, but some will also have an ‘official’ badge. Then changes his name and stops it, but now it appears again.
And here we are today, where the verifications have backfired spectacularly and now there are multiple fake, parody account of brands and celebrities tweeting out crazy stuff, from politicians to athletes to huge brands (here come the lawsuits)
More leadership resigns. Musk calls a very last minute meeting where he says people will lose their jobs if they don’t suddenly show up, and told employees he’s not sure how much run rate the company has and “bankruptcy isn’t out of the question.”
Let’s see how this plays out….
