Sell Elon. Sell.
Chaos at Twitter/X is a bigger problem than any its self-appointed savior was supposed to solve in the first place. The solution is obvious.
Turns out it’s really bad for business for a tech CEO to repeatedly alienate users, file frivolous lawsuits, arbitrarily dump a brand name so recognizable it’s turned into a widely used verb, regularly respond with poop emojis to press inquiries as a PR “strategy,” consume psychedelic drugs so much that his board members leak their concerns to the Wall Street Journal, openly muse about potential assassination of a sitting U.S. president, and tell advertisers to go f#@!* themselves.
Who knew!
Oh, right. Pretty much everyone who’s not Elon Musk.
Forbes recently estimated that Twitter/X’s revenue has fallen 84% since mid-2022, the last time it reported results as a public company before Musk took it private. That strikes me as a great big-picture number to contextualize Musk’s chaotic misrule of the social network.
Sure, it’s easy for each daily crisis or controversy he creates to distract from the last. But if you want to understand the total effect of them all, that single number sums it up pretty well: Revenue down 84%.
As for profit, the platform wasn’t turning one even before Musk showed up. Now it’s presumably even farther from getting into the black.
If you’re keen to delve into the Musk-era downfall of Twitter/X in fuller detail, I would recommend checking out Character Limit, the new book about the company by New York Times tech reporters Kate Konger and Ryan Mac.
Since the book’s release on Sept. 17, it’s already generated a slew of insane, previously unreported anecdotes about Musk’s takeover as the authors have made the rounds for promotional interviews. So don’t fear, we won’t run out anytime soon.
Last week also saw a tantilizing, if unlikely, escape option emerge from a different tech billionaire: Mark Cuban. He said in an interview with Wired’s Lauren Goode that he would consider buying Twitter/X, if it were for sale. Which he adamantly doesn’t believe it is.
(Cuban also said he would buy Fox News — an institution that has had its own share of toxic drama the last few years — “in a heartbeat.” But he estimates the price tag would be way too rich for even his pocketbook.)
The interview also makes clear that Cuban is plenty busy these days with a project completely unrelated to any form of media. He’s started a company that sells prescription drugs at prices that sharply undercut the astronomical norms in America.
Fair enough. But we can all hold out hope on that social-media thing, can’t we?
Perhaps if Cuban’s new company quickly comes to dominate the U.S. drug market, which sounds plausible considering the utterly ridiculous status quo, he’ll move on to some other big undertaking. And perhaps if the valuation of Twitter/X keeps falling, which also sounds extremely plausible, Musk would indeed become willing to sell. And then… Maybe?
For now, let it suffice that my reaction to the mere mention of Cuban buying Twitter/X was exactly the same as that of Goode, a former colleague at the Wall Street Journal, when she broached the topic with Cuban himself.
“Would you please, for the love of God, buy Twitter?”
This post is adopted from w3w, my newsletter about emerging technology over on Substack. To receive it in your inbox every Sunday, including additional headlines from around the internet about web3, AI, and more, subscribe here. 😊
