Is it possible that Elmo’s destruction of Twitter is a deliberate act of sabotage? With each passing day it becomes harder assume it is mere incompetence. At first it was funny watching the world’s richest man making an ass of himself. But with each compounding travesty it gets harder to explain away as idiocy. At this point the simpler explanation is that the blitzkrieg destruction of Twitter is the plan.
He has managed to maximize the damage to every major stakeholder group in such a short period of time it is a work of art. Dark MBA art, but to be this thorough actually takes some skill.
Attack the Customers
Promoting and then coyly deleting conspiracy theories and partisan positions is too cute by half. Advertisers, the current paying customers of Twitter, don’t want to take the risk of associating with that stuff. They have LOTS of other options. Having one less social media swamp to stay on top of is welcome in Marketing Departments across the globe.
Then, having spooked advertisers to the exits he threatened them with “nuclear level” embarrassment if they pull their advertising. That isn’t exactly Consultative Sales 101.
Even if he is just pretending to be a rocket scientist this stuff is so basic it is hard to explain. Unless the plan is to destroy the revenue model as quickly as possible.
Attack the Employees
OK — firing the leadership en masse was probably going to happen sooner or later. So rip that band aid off and get on with it.
But then lay off half the company with virtually no process or thought? That isn’t how it is done. Those kinds of actions take weeks, if not months, to do correctly. You need to know who has critical skills and you need to be as fair about it as you can be. That isn’t possible in, checks notes, 5 days. The ready, fire, aim approach was guaranteed to destroy institutional knowledge and to create legal havoc.
Then, a week and half later send out a letter telling people that to stay at the company they should say goodbye to their families as they head off to 80 hour work weeks in perpetuity. Isn’t it exciting to know that you can burn yourself out all in service of making the world’s richest man even richer? Who wouldn’t want to go on that crusade?
When a mass exodus of the remaining talent decides take you up on the severance offer proceed to lock everyone out of the company for a few days. Because nothing says “we trust and value you” than locking the doors without notice.
This is a brutal assault on the workforce with an entirely predictable set of consequences. A black hole of morale, technical chaos leading to product outages, endless lawsuits, and a cowed and feral team of remaining employees engaged in circular back stabbing.
Attack the Users
The authoritarian cabal funding the takeover have a vested interest in silencing dissidents and sowing confusion. That would explain the immediate attack on blue checks, where civil rights advocates with followings could speak out with a stamp of authenticity and rally people to protest. The paltry revenue from $8 was never going to cover the debt payments. No, the plan was to undermine expertise and silence prominent independent voices.
Implementing it in a way that amplifies trolls and troublemakers is just icing on the cake. MOAR CHAOS.
Forcing Steven King pay for the right to create content for you — priceless.
Attack the Banks
Having undermined the revenue model and sowed the seeds of technical collapse he then floated bankruptcy less than a week into ownership. To be polite, this was executive malpractice. When a company goes to the trouble of assuring you that bankruptcy isn’t likely the fact that they even said it should raise flags. The banks promptly discovered that the paper they had been holding for [checks notes again] less than a week is now worth under 60 cents on the dollar.
They should sell while they can. They were idiots for believing he was going to make $1b in interest payments on the revenue base of the going concern he took over, they will get what they deserve.
But $44 Billion
Who in their right mind would light $44 billion on fire? Well, it isn’t all his money. But let’s assume he ends up having to cover all of it. He is worth $196 billion as of last week. Using a conservative 3% return that equates to an annual income of $5.9 billion, or $113 million PER WEEK ($16m per day, $672k per hour). You know, the usual; groceries, alimony, trips to Mars. If he loses the whole Twitter enchilada his income would drop to a mere $88 million PER WEEK.
I know most of his net worth is mostly stock — yada yada yada. The point is he isn’t going to notice the difference, so whatever is happening here it isn’t about the money.
From the start he has told us it is ideological — we should believe him.
It just isn’t the ideology of unfettered free speech he claimed it was. We just have to look at how he is muzzling his own critics to see that fig leaf drop away.
Twitter has enabled people around the world to create nodes of power outside of the control of the billionaire class and their affiliate authoritarians. By taking it over and burning it to the ground he is helping Putin, Trump, Xi, MBS, the Ayatollahs, and any power center trying to exercise control over the information space. They just reversed the usual “you break it you own it” rule.
So far, things are going according to plan.
PS — For those inclined to say this is CT, I’m commenting on observed behavior and public statements. I’m just looking at it through a different lens than the “ha ha isn’t this billionaire an idiot” lens driving most current coverage.
