He is the richest of the richest in the world, but he will probably be called the most unpredictable and most controversial businessman, if not in history, then at least in the 21st century. The company has gained notoriety in the global business world for its innovative electric vehicle industry. Tesla, at a time when the global community is looking for a way out of the climate crisis and turning the economy towards electrification and clean energy. However, to a large extent Elon Musk he manages to hold the spotlight for long periods of time and to a pompous degree, not so much because of his business and technological achievements, but because of his idiosyncrasies and controversial business decisions that lead him on unimaginable adventures.

Unprecedented in business history, Elon Musk and Twitter’s dramatic, if not tragicomic, series surprisingly manages to continue with new episodes a mere 10 months after it began, and while taking over the most popular social media, at least so far, should networks have been completed.

Ten months after Twitter’s unprecedented takeover streak began, she continues to amaze.

The romance did not begin in April, when Musk expressed his intention to buy Twitter for $44 billion, but in January, when he began investing in Twitter. To finance the acquisition, he sells $8.5 billion worth of Tesla shares, but is unable to raise the funds needed for the acquisition. Referring thus to the various, he tries to terminate the agreement in the midst of a stock market crash and a crisis of high-tech companies and follows his inevitable legal dispute with the shareholders of the company, who demanded the implementation of the agreement. And while after the legal drama of three weeks ago, the acquisition of the company was finally completed, causing a sigh of relief from shareholders, Musk shows an inexhaustible reserve of energy and creates news, sometimes timid, and sometimes annoying.

In recent weeks, he has complacently held the attention of the international media because, as soon as he took control of Twitter, he began to fire successful employees of the company, informing his victims with unethical tweets. Eventually, however, he subsequently abandoned many of them. However, he managed to cause a literal hemorrhage of executives who panicked and threw the company behind bars to avoid an unpredictable employer. And, finally, he announced that he would not head the company, but would appoint a new CEO after the now departed Jack Dorsey, until recently the company’s CEO, said he would not accept the position.

When the case ended, at least on the face of it, with the settlement of the conflict with the implementation of the acquisition, millions of Twitter users, shareholders, executives, EU authorities. and the international media continued to be harassed by his claims of full content release, which have not yet been fully clarified. Musk, among other things, described the cancellation of Donald Trump’s accounts as an “exaggeration” that the company’s management decided upon after the invasion of the Capitol.

Chaos on Twitter after ‘hard’ ultimatum

If we assume that until last week, Musk simply caused ambivalence among those who follow his life and condition, then in recent days he really begins to inspire shock and awe. Twitter, now a cult social network, has been in a state of absolute chaos since Thursday evening after Musk’s latest aggressive move, which manages to kick out what appears to be an overwhelming percentage of its experienced employees, now nurturing legitimate doubts about the company’s future at all levels. He did this by sending employees a predatory ultimatum, warning them that Twitter would be “hardcore” from now on. He even clarified that the work of those who remain will be the same “hardcore” and urged employees to either give written consent to this hardcore work or leave the company. Those who decide to leave, and it is estimated that there are many of them, will be compensated in the amount of three salaries. And there are many who chose the heroic goodbye.

Twitter’s picture of disorderly deconstruction was completed by a temporary lockdown of the company’s offices on Thursday evening, when security guards shooed employees away and told them the offices would not reopen until Monday. It looks like there are far more people leaving than Musk thought. At least that’s how the Guardian interprets the fact that Musk actually reversed an order he gave employees a week earlier when he told them telework was no longer working. It now allows Twitter employees to continue working remotely, provided their managers certify that their “contribution is exceptional.”

As the British newspaper points out, it’s really thought-provoking, especially about how stable the Twitter platform will be in the future, the fact that among the departing ones are the company’s engineers in charge of fixing bugs. But the media reports that Musk tried to convince some executives to hold a face-to-face meeting with them, where he asked them to stay. In a word, the businessman promised to remake Twitter, promised the European authorities that he would not violate EU rules, showed that he had big plans, but for now he made an incomprehensible mess, naturally bringing his joint-stock company into decline.

Its action extends from cars to space and neurotechnology.

Undoubtedly, what has been happening on Twitter over the past few days rightfully raises the question of whether Musk knows what he is doing and whether he intends to clean up the company financially or break it up. At the same time, it is extremely risky from a business point of view that in order to win the heart of Twitter, Elon Musk in a sense neglected Tesla, his innovative car company. The company not only sold its shares to finance the acquisition of the social networking site, but also hired its own engineers to handle Twitter-related duties. In the end, everything shows that as a businessman he is no longer involved in his auto industry at a time when Tesla shares are in free fall and have lost about 48% of their value this year. For investors and market players, Twitter threatens to become a dangerous distraction and be disastrous for Tesla.
Theoretically, of course, Elon Musk is a multifaceted personality who, in addition to Tesla, has expanded his activities to the space company Space X, with which he has developed intense competition with Jeff Bezos. He also controls tunneling company Boring and neurotech company Neuralink. Indeed, in the midst of all this confusion that he made on Twitter, he himself said that in order to cope with his obligations, he works “at night and seven days a week.” However, even this diligence is no guarantee of success, and, of course, millions of users, shareholders of his companies, including Twitter, and the business world at large are rightfully wondering where Twitter will go now.

On top of that, Elon Musk is a controversial figure, clearly smug with an insatiable thirst for publicity, posing insistently on all kinds of screens, gesturing and smiling in the style of a pop star. And at the same time, he displays aggressive authoritarianism among his employees, categorically forbidding the formation of unions in his companies and threatening to fire anyone who tries to do so. In addition, in recent days, statements by his employees at SpaceX that they were fired for negative comments about him have become known.

As arrogantly as he addressed the staff of Twitter when it became his property, he addressed or simply addressed political leaders and governments. He argued that the US government should not subsidize businesses, when it is well known that the US government subsidized him for billions of dollars. He compared Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Hitler, questioned vaccines during the pandemic, called the world’s fear of the coronavirus “stupid” and in March 2020 went so far as to prophesy that there would be no outbreaks in the US in April. Elon Musk is an ambiguous personality who can be easily admired, but also easy to scare. The question is whether this is an entrepreneurial genius or a successful person who just got lucky. Often the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

village square

Explaining his intention to remove restrictions on the content of tweets, Musk stated that “Twitter is the de facto village square, so it’s very important that people have the opportunity and the feeling that they can express themselves freely within the restrictions.” law.”

Mass layoffs

Commenting on Musk’s mass layoffs on the popular social network, Ross Gerber, a shareholder in both Twitter and Tesla, said that “Twitter has a lot of talent, especially in the field of engineering, and management wants to retain as much as possible.” “Maybe of those talents.”

EU he has rules

Responding to Musk’s smug message, as the liberator of Twitter after the social media site came under his control, that “the bird flies free,” Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton commented, with a hint of reproach, that “in Europe, the bird will fly by the rules.” “. EU”.