Steve Jobs returning to Apple comes to mind

Steve Job's return to Apple was not like this at all. For all his faults Jobs was never as erratic as Musk, and he never pulled stunts like causing 80% of the staff to be fired or leave, nor did he ever lock the buildings in Cupertino.

Jobs had his rough edges, but Musk makes him look like the voice of reason, patience, and tact.

And, importantly, while Jobs had strong opinions, he was often willing to let them be challenged, and to be convinced to change his mind.

What did Steve Jobs do? He wasn't even at the company for half the layoffs that happened, and wasn't CEO until they were over. He killed some boondoggles 6 months after being formally named CEO (and over a year after NEXT was acquired).

Looks like I'm not the only one who made the assosiation:

    David Heinemeier Hansson
    November 5, 2022
    Apple fired 4,100 when Steve Jobs returned in 1997 
    https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-fired-4-100-when-steve-jobs-returned-in-1997-57ed6bc6

I'd encourage you to read the source he cites in that blog post - it's clearly very, very different from what Musk is doing.

Sorry, it was the best I could come up with

A broken clock is also right two times a day.

That was ~30% of Apple's staff at the time.

And I think they were on the edge of Bankruptcy

DHH would know a thing or two about pissing off half your employees overnight.

Jack Welch at General Electric. Granted it wasn't a tech company though.

He was fawned over at the time, but Welch is finally being assigned his share of blame for gutting GE.

GE became profitable, it was just not GE anymore but some monstrosity that became a finance firm instead of an engineering one.

You can see some similarity to Boeing after having MD's management taking over, accounting-wise it's working, engineering-wise it's fallen deep into a pit of issues.

He took one of the most valuable and enduring companies in American history and destroyed it completely. It no longer exists.

So you're saying it's an apt comparison? Ha.

Yes, but he did it slowly, and at great profit to himself. Totally different than Musk!

Wild? Yes, dramatic? No.

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp was tapped to take control of LEGO when its business was on the verge of failing (in such a way that the founding family themselves did not know they were so close to the edge).

Entire departments and ventures were cut.

Guy Roz does a very interesting interview on Wisdom from the Top about it.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/04/1043122974/lego-jorgen-vig-kn...

What is wild? Musk has said for a long time Twitter needs 75% less staff. What did you expect firing that many people to look like?

Presumably you'd build a coherent plan for what the future company would need, figure out which employees are best suited to get you there, and then make strategic layoffs to non-core services and teams outside of that scope. Or you could send a Google doc to every employee with two days notice saying "Click here to work yourself to death for uncertain reward" and then be surprised when hardly anyone agrees.

Doing the big ultimatum after firing a random half of the organization and then demanding RTO really wasn't the best planning

considering that Black Friday, Qatar World Cup and Christmas are all in the next 30 days, one might have thought he'd want to capitalize on the increased traffic and advertiser interest in his first week on the job.

It doesn't even look like there will be any advertisers left by the time the dust settles.

Apparently usage of Twitter is growing, instead of decreasing. So you as an advertiser will just ignore a platform with a massive user base just because you don't like the owner?

Advertisers can buy ads anywhere. Twitter has always had the least amount of bargaining power of all the ad-driven social networks.

It was up to Musk to assure Twitter's biggest revenue sources that he would lead with a steady hand. He hasn't done anything except publicly revel in firing people, then ignore the issue of trolls using his $8/mo. feature to impersonate corporate brands.

Digital ad campaigns have budgets, and they can be shifted around platforms without much hassle. The money will be shifted to platforms that actually listen to what advertisers are asking for, which is basic brand safety.