Even before Twitter was purchased it was in a really delicate balancing act of profitability. Any misstep that seemed slightly too much had advertisers and users leaving and the opposite meant Twitter couldn’t make a profit. Perhaps anyone purchasing Twitter would tip that scale with anything they tried, but Elon here instead of walking back his decisions when they don’t work keeps doubling down.
Twitter doesn’t generate profits:
Twitter has been operating at a massive loss for years, failing to book an annual profit since 2019 (Mauer, 2022). For eight out of the last ten years, the company has posted a loss.
If anyone wants to nitpick over the 2/10 years when they reported profitability, consider the real value of getting in the black twice in company history in an environment where you’re gearing up for a an IPO. The long-term trend is clearly that this is not a viable business model.
Which is why I find it really hard to believe it’s not intentional even if I don’t understand the end game.
Delicately balanced is one thing. Making repeated decisions that my technophobe father could see are stupid is another.
I flipped from “wow he’s really mismanaging this” to “wow he’s trying to kill it” about 2 months ago, and have become nothing but more convinced since then.
No, I just think he’s very bad at reining in an extremely impulsive and volatile personality which leads to him making rash decisions. Also he is always wanting to make sweeping changes rather than gradual ones which may have worked with Tesla and Space but doesn’t suit Twitter.
And lastly, I don’t think he really cares that much either way - as others have said, he had to be forced to buy Twitter remember. He’s got this albatross around his neck which is losing him money every day. He probably resents it a bit, has probably nearly hit the truth that the only way you could make a social media company profitable is to make everyone pay - except for the fact that almost everyone then leaves.
I think he’s too much of a wild card for anyone to involve in their cunning plan. I mean regardless of politics would you recruit him for your masterplan?
All your points are reasonable, but I don’t think the masterplan requires anyone but him. He’s gone mask off as far as being ok with or even promoting hate speech of various flavors, and twitter was increasingly hostile to those sorts of folks until he took over. Unbanning Trump was damn near the first thing he did.
He strikes me absolutely as childish enough and rich enough that (incorporating also your “he doesn’t really want it” point) buying it, doing everything he can to run it into the ground, then folding or divesting it (who would want it now?) when he thinks he’s destroyed it as deeply as he can.
I’m almost entirely with you on this.
But the only thing causing mind on my doubt is how excessively impulsive and not-in-control-of-himself Enlo often seems. That’s the only thing that makes “this is just a serious of very stupid decisions made in the heat of the moment” even somewhat plausible.
Yeah, it’s very typical human to double down when things start to go wrong. It’s this kind of stubborn bloody minded mindset and a lot of luck that saved Tesla when it was balancing on a knife’s edge and same with SpaceX, he kept pushing his crazy ideas but they worked out in the last second. However, Twitter is a different beast entirely, it’s not going to be saved by manufacturing, it’s about something Elon Musk does poorly with: people.
