If you are a fan of reality tv documentaries like Back To The Floor or Undercover Boss I suggest you start following Elon Musk on Twitter as you don’t need a tv subscription to watch the latest corporate drama unfold real time. 

A video of Musk walking into Twitter HQ carrying a bathroom sink with the caption “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” was how many found out that the sale of Twitter to Musk was complete. It was a rapid conclusion to the endless “will-he won’t-he?” buy Twitter question last week.  

The deal got done and Musk immediately fired CEO Parag Agrawal, finance head Ned Segal, and head of legal policy Vijaya Gadde. But the real question is will Musk succeed or fail with his $44B investment? And will this be a distraction from Tesla and SpaceX that neither business can afford?

Musk’s first few days at the helm of the social media giant have been as frantic as the legal battles to determine the fate of the 7,500 Twitter employees. 

During the acquisition phase, Musk told investors that he could double Twitter’s revenue in 3 years and that he believed 75% of its workforce was not needed. Lofty goals and certainly claims that will put many current employees on edge even if the headcount cuts are being downplayed internally. 

Though the deal has been done, I doubt that the debate is over on the mechanics of the valuation as Musk has tasked a team to change the much coveted Twitter blue check to a paid only subscription. A sure way to weed out all of the bots that were at the heart of Musk’s claim that Twitter’s own reporting of users (and therefore their valuation) was exaggerated. While this is a great idea, but if the report in The Verge is true that the team has been told launch this by November 7th or you are fired, then it won’t help to win the hearts and minds of the Twitter teams. 

I do support Musk’s focus on inefficient middle managers, he’s supposedly asked the Tesla Engineers he trusts to identify technical middle managers who haven’t contributed to the code base. Now there could be an opportunity for some productivity gains!

Musk has often been quoted saying he wants to reduce Twitter’s content moderation, and concerning reports over the weekend indicate racial slurs on Twitter has risen since Musk took over the company. Celebrities including Lebron James called out Musk personally on Twitter over the weekend to ask Musk to address this and take it seriously. 

The window into Twitter has been opened as Musk answers LeBron and others questions real time on Twitter; polling if he should bring back Twitter’s short form video Vine; seemingly sharing evidence to support his past legal claims against the Twitter board, and ridiculing automated internal management training prompts publicly. His 112 million followers all following along. 

While everyone else waits for the next season of HBO’s brilliant series Succession to return, we only need to tune in to Twitter to watch the self named Chief Twit himself take center stage for his next performance. I expect Tesla and SpaceX won’t be seeing as much of Musk for a while.

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

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