Musk's Twitter clusterf*** continues [View all]

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Twitter: Musk digs himself into a deeper hole

Is Twitter being steered towards bankruptcy?

It's clear that Elon Musk has no idea what he's doing with Twitter, said Farhad Manjoo in The New York Times. Within days of taking over the social media giant he took private for $44 billion, he warned employees that "bankruptcy isn't out of the question." His reign "reached an absurdist peak" last week when he rolled out his Twitter Blue plan to allow anyone to buy a blue-and-white "verified" check mark for $8 a month. Musk had pitched his idea "as a way to add egalitarian sensibility to Twitter." But "if anyone could pay to be verified," wouldn't that mean "nobody was verified?" Musk apparently hadn't considered this. Within hours, pranksters had created "verified" accounts spoofing Donald Trump, Pope Francis, Tesla, and O.J. Simpson. A tweet sent by a verified — but fake — account impersonating pharmaceuticals giant Eli Lilly declared that "insulin is free now," sending Eli Lilly's stock plunging. Musk then suspended the Blue program and Twitter rolled out gray "Official" badges for "really authentic accounts." The new gray badges lasted just a few hours before Musk said he would kill those, too.

Turning Twitter into a subscription-dominated site was Musk's big idea for profitability, said Matt Ford in The New Republic. "What could go wrong?" Well, now we know. As much as Musk and conservatives loathed the blue check mark as a "status symbol," it "actually served an important verification service." Opening it up to anyone without requiring proof of their identity "has erased any trust or confidence" in the platform. What's to stop a person who realizes that he "can short a company's stock, impersonate a journalist, tweet that the Justice Department indicted that company's CEO for securities fraud, and reap the rewards of any price drop?" You almost wonder if he is "deliberately steering Twitter toward bankruptcy," said Parmy Olson in Bloomberg. This week, he cut "a large number of the company's contract workers without warning." Many of those workers were content moderators. So now advertisers have yet another reason to stay away.

Talk of bankruptcy is premature, said Paula Seligson and Lucca De Paoli, also in Bloomberg, but "his comments shouldn't be entirely discounted." Musk borrowed about $13 billion from banks; Twitter has to pay interest on that debt, and interest rates are rising. The company had $2.7 billion in cash as of June 30, which should keep it afloat "for a good amount of time." However, "Twitter reaps almost all its revenue from big brands," said Jennifer Saba in Reuters, "and those big advertisers are already looking for an excuse to put the brakes on spending" amid economic worries. Musk is giving them that excuse.

Tesla is becoming Twitter's collateral damage, said Therese Poletti in MarketWatch. Shares in the electric-car maker, which Musk also leads, are down 49.6 percent this year. The concerns for investors "go far beyond Musk selling stock" to finance his purchase. He has reportedly "pulled more than 50 Tesla engineers" to help run Twitter. Many people have "bought into the Tesla story because they believe Musk is a genius." The chaotic mess at Twitter is rapidly eroding that myth.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/twitter-musk-digs-himself-into-a-deeper-hole/ar-AA14iGe5

Twitter Desperation Surfaces As Elon Musk Calls For Engineers 'Who Can Actually Write Software'

A historic workforce reduction followed by mass resignation has put Twitter's new CEO Elon Musk on the backfoot, to the point of desperation, it seems. Tech journalist Zoe Schiffer got her hands on an emails sent out by Musk to the remaining employees at Twitter, asking "anyone who can actually write software" to report in the company's San Francisco based headquarter on Friday.

According to multiple reports, Twitter's offices have been closed and employee badge access has been revoked until Monday, while Musk was personally said to be patrolling the office premises with his close confidantes. This came after Musk gave employees a deadline to either commit to his Twitter 2.0 dream that will be all about hardcore engineering, or bid their goodbyes to the company with a three-month severance package in their hands.

Insider and Fortune reported that not many are willing to join Musk on his quest to reinvent Twitter, with anywhere between 1,000 and 1,200 employees calling it quits. It appears that Musk was not anticipating the mass departure, which has left Twitter with just over 2,000 employees, down from over 7,000 just a couple of weeks ago. It appears that Musk is growing anxious, calling the entire workforce to join on a team call — especially the coding talent — and also asked them to furnish the most relevant piece of code they have written at Twitter.

Coders, Assemble!


Musk's email to employees asked them to join the meeting in person, telling them "If possible, I would encourage you to fly to SF to present, in person." What Is truly bizzare is that Musk asked the engineers to send the details of code they had pushed in the past six months or arrive to the meeting with screenshots of the "most salient lines of code" they had written recently.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/twitter-desperation-surfaces-as-elon-musk-calls-for-engineers-who-can-actually-write-software/ar-AA14jlVj

Elon Musk’s ‘chainsaw’ approach to Twitter won’t work, says early SpaceX investor and former Facebook executive

Elon Musk is ‘well outside his depth’ at Twitter and a ‘bullying management culture’ won’t work there, says a former Facebook executive.

An early investor in SpaceX, Chris Kelly is “mostly an Elon fan,” but said that strategies that worked at Musk’s other companies won’t translate at Twitter. Kelly made the comments at Big Ideas Live, and Sky News event held Saturday in London.

"He's able to do some pretty amazing things, but has got into an area that's well outside his depth and thinks a bullying management culture can change it—and that's not going to work at a company like Twitter,” said Kelly. "I've certainly seen some driving management moves from Elon at Tesla and SpaceX before, but I'm surprised this was the approach. He should have taken a much more measured approach when he was taking over.”

Sharing Kelly’s sentiment was Dex Hunter-Torricke, a former SpaceX communications head who now advises Facebook on moderation as part of Meta's oversight board.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-s-chainsaw-approach-to-twitter-won-t-work-says-early-spacex-investor-and-former-facebook-executive/ar-AA14jqqY