One of the most valuable parts of Musk is his personal brand. He can raise money and hire talent in large part because he's a household name. Everything he does, from naming his child X Æ A-12 to producing a house track, is to proliferate the public perception that he is an eccentric genius, a modern-day polymath like the Da Vincis and Franklins of old.
It may not seem like "real" work, but if Elon Musk and I both started different companies on the same day, who do you think is going to attract funding and top talent more quickly?
Musk can be great when he does his homework and first principles analysis. It is obvious he hasn't done it here.
Having advertisers take a huge step back because they seek minimal uncertainty and you spend the entire week maximizing uncertainty is bad (& shows incompetence).
Having advertisers drop campaigns literally in the middle of the call to sell next year's baseline because you aren't even close to prepared for the questions is deeply arrogant incompetence [0].
Threatening "thermonuclear name and shame" on your advertisers [1] — your primary customers — is unnecessarily showing the entire world that you've lost it.
Same goes for starting the week with the now-infamous claim that "a bunch of activists" are chasing away the revenue (would Musk accept that kind of excuse from any exec reporting to him?)[2], then having it explained WHY they are actually pausing by one of the people in the meeting [3], then blocking the guy you just spoke with the day before...
I cannot begin to see how any of this is remotely good for Musk's brand. He's showing the world in real-time that he's in over his head, has no idea what is the business model and the key elements, and just thrashing about blaming everyone else, when literally he is entirely to blame for the chaos.
Oh, and I've yet to read the other HN Pg1 headline [5] that Musk/Twitter is already asking some of the people it fired yesterday to return!
If you can actually explain how any of this is remotely good for Musk, Twitter, or anyone, I'd be interested to hear it... Because it looks like he's trying really hard to sink Twitter faster than Digg sunk. (There's actually a good argument that his initial intent was to sink Twitter when he first made the comment and offer, to maximize uncertainty and tank their '23 sales, but then he was forced to buy it b/c he was too foolish to even have a proper excape clause in the contract, and here we are)
[0] https://twitter.com/GoAngelo/status/1588696157794242560
[1] https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/1588718759098851328
[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588538640401018880
[3] https://twitter.com/LouPas/status/1588599808587345921
I just do not see how any of his actions actually help enhance that even with even an idealized version of such a customer, and does not alienate even that customer.
How does it establish any credibility with anyone to 1) be so unprepared for a critical advertiser's (your customers) presentation that customers literally cut their spend during the meeting; 2) publicly make excuses trying to blame for your failures on some "activist groups" who actually had no influence on advertisers' (your customers) decision to cut spending; 3) destroying verification and turning it into a anyone-can-pay-$8-to-say-they-are-anyone-and-get-greater-reach; 4) come into a $44B deal making a lot of noise and failing to articulate a plan, any plan that gets anyone on board?; etc., etc., etc.
I wish Elon all the success in the world, but he is seriously flailing here, and creating confidence in no one. I expect that he has a good chance of sorting it out once he understands the issues, but he's clearly done no homework up front, so is figuring it out in real time.
I do not see how this helps him, even with his ideal customer. Of course, as usual his comments have plenty of fanbois claiming whatever he does must be 4-D Chess, but seriously, how does this much public flailing, thrashing, and excuses give anyone confidence?
Can you point to any specific action that would actually give such a customer more confidence? From what I've read, the RW people are also really pissed at him because they expected to be able to rush right in and raise hell, and that's not yet happening either...