Benjamin Olson
Hero
To a normal businessman the main things Musk got out of acquiring Twitter was an established user base and an established brand. He alienated and drove away the one and has now abandoned the other. So more or less a complete loss. He could have bought some bargain basement Twitter-clone for a fraction of the cost and achieved the same outcome businesswise, except that it would actually be viable because it wouldn't be saddled with crushing debt.
But this was about attention and social influence, not business, so he might of still succeeded on that front. However he failed to recognize that most of Twitter's influence comes from 98% of journalists being hardcore addicts, who have also discovered that the easiest possible story to write is the "someone said something on Twitter" story (which practically writes itself several times a day). Love them or hate them, it was Twitter's relationships with members of the mainstream media that made it such a cultural force beyond its actual user-base. Rather than encourage these relationships, Musk actively destroyed them.
So a terrible performance as a businessman and also a terrible performance in terms of exerting real cultural influence. I suppose on the "spoiled rich baby needs attention front" he's gotten and continues to get plenty, but this seems like an inefficient way to buy attention.
But this was about attention and social influence, not business, so he might of still succeeded on that front. However he failed to recognize that most of Twitter's influence comes from 98% of journalists being hardcore addicts, who have also discovered that the easiest possible story to write is the "someone said something on Twitter" story (which practically writes itself several times a day). Love them or hate them, it was Twitter's relationships with members of the mainstream media that made it such a cultural force beyond its actual user-base. Rather than encourage these relationships, Musk actively destroyed them.
So a terrible performance as a businessman and also a terrible performance in terms of exerting real cultural influence. I suppose on the "spoiled rich baby needs attention front" he's gotten and continues to get plenty, but this seems like an inefficient way to buy attention.
