[imagesource: James Duncan Davidson / CC BY-NC 3.0]
Depending largely on your political leaning, you may think Elon Musk buying Twitter is a reason to celebrate or a reason to exit the social media giant altogether and head for the likes of Mastodon.
Surely, though, after a few weeks at the helm, even his biggest supporters are starting to wonder if he really thought through the $44 billion purchase.
The ‘blue tick’ saga has had plenty of twists and turns already and it’s still not clear how Musk plans to effectively and efficiently avoid having important accounts impersonated.
At least he’s been honest about one thing:
Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.
We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022
The Daily Beast has put together a helpful timeline of how things are falling apart.
We will begin with advertisers like General Motors, General Mills, and United Airlines beating a hasty retreat:
Musk hosts a Twitter Space to try to win advertisers back – He acted like slightly less of a troll, but also compared the old verification system to one of America’s wars.
Multiple top privacy and security officers quit, according to the Washington Post, sparking concern from the FTC – In the past two weeks, the company also lost its chief marketing officer, head of product, the chief customer officer, and head of people and diversity, to name a few.
Musk officially alienates everyone left at Twitter by demanding they all come back into the office full time – And also calls the economic future “dire” and predicts Twitter will not survive it without “significant subscription revenue” in an email to staff.
Two more crucial execs jump ship – My, it’s a thin crowd on the Titanic this evening. Insiders tell Axios: “It’s over … Trust is gone.”
Those resignations put Twitter at risk of copping massive fines due to non-compliance with guarantees given that the company was complying with an FTC (Federal Trade Commission) mandate about user data.
Yesterday, reports NDTV, Musk also told employees that the site was burning dangerously through cash and raised the spectre of bankruptcy
The chaos followed the unveiling of the site’s long-awaited Twitter Blue subscription service, which allows users to pay $7.99 per month for a coveted blue tick, as well as a separate gray “official” badge for some high-profile accounts.
But the release descended into cacophony on Wednesday when Musk scrapped the new gray label almost immediately, overshadowing the launch of the pay service…
“You may have noticed I sold a bunch of Tesla stock. The reason I did that is to save Twitter,” he is reported to have said.
I’m not sure I would feel very reassured if I worked at Twitter after my boss told me the “economic picture ahead is dire”.
Twitter now has more than $10 billion in debt and the interest payments are likely to be pretty high.
Regarding brands and celebs being impersonated, here’s a solid look at how the wheels came off over the space of just 24 hours:
The verified brand situation is getting out of control. Quick thread of twitter blue brands, and brands who might be pissed off at Elon right about now. pic.twitter.com/bZ9PSqZKtf
— Read Jackson Rising by @CooperationJXN (@JoshuaPHilll) November 11, 2022
Including a Tesla impersonation that would have caught Musk’s attention:
It gets worse:
oh so real pic.twitter.com/tbcaYdckSe
— deep sea burrito 🌯🎶 (@peptide) November 11, 2022
The likes of like LeBron James, Rudy Giuliani, Joe Biden, and George W. Bush were also impersonated.
It led to this statement from Musk:
To be more precise, accounts doing parody impersonations. Basically, tricking people is not ok.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2022
The world’s richest person, who arrived at Twitter HQ carrying a sink (“let that sink in”) says enough is enough, okay?
Amidst all the drama, the FTC has gone public with its concerns. Here’s the BBC:
“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs, said.
“No chief executive or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees.”
Mr Farrer said the FTC had “new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them”.
Maybe the guy who struck gold with PayPal and Tesla and SpaceX has finally bitten off more than he can chew.
He does have a bit of runway to play with, given that his net worth is around $196 billion. Whether or not he manages to turn Twitter around, both financially and reputation-wise (in order to make it palatable to advertisers), looks set to play out publicly and in dramatic fashion.
That’s basically what Twitter is best at so grab the popcorn and get comfy.
