Elon damaged Twitter's reputation when he started his "hardcore" work ethic of summary firing people, refusing to honor contracts and not pay bills.

In any other company, this would be a nothing-burger. Account managers are always withholding payments from vendors when they feel the vendor did not deliver the claimed services, or when a contract negotiation is in progress. Its incredibly common.

But now with Twitter, anything that can barely fit the narrative of "Twitter can't pay their bills" becomes a news item. And people eat it up because everyone wants to see Elon fail (mostly because he seems to be a jerk).

This is why most company executives try to have a very low profile. If you're boring, you don't make the news.