The IT Nerd

I promise, I will get to the whole circus surrounding that poll that Elon Musk posted yesterday asking if he should stay as CEO. But first I want to cover one other item that is more important than Elon’s poll. Yesterday Twitter decided to forbid users from “promoting” other social media sites. And the blowback from that policy was swift. And it must have had an influence on Twitter / Elon because the page that once detailed how this policy works is gone and so are any Twitter tweets referencing it. What this means is the policy no longer exists.

I am guessing that it might have something to do with this:

IMPORTANT: @elonmusk's new policy preventing linking to competitors is in DIRECT VIOLATION of European Union rules.

Penalty can be a fine of up to 20% of Twitter's annual revenuehttps://t.co/Wu1dU4JRn7 pic.twitter.com/cZWsl92npr

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 18, 2022

While Elon isn’t afraid to pick a fight, he might have decided that if the EU came knocking on his door, that this was one fight he could not win. I have an alternate theory though. Advertisers use multiple social media platforms to increase their exposure. And I suspect that they might have dialled up Twitter on Sunday afternoon to say “WTF?”. One of those who uses multiple social media platforms and advertises their presence on Twitter is, Tesla:

Dear @elonmusk

I would like to report @Telsa for this clear violation of Twitter rules.

These rules are very important and made by you, our benevolent leader.

I trust you will be suspending this account shortly.

All the best.

— Judd pic.twitter.com/DqQz9ulw7p

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 18, 2022

That’s just too funny. And so is this:

Dear @elonmusk

I wanted to draw your attention to this tweet, which mentions that you have an account on a competing platform that is too dangerous to name.

Please suspend your account until this dangerous situation is resolved.

Thank you sir.

— Judd pic.twitter.com/vB7wMkfgFC

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 18, 2022

That might have played a part in walking back this dumb policy as well. This whole episode illustrates how unhinged and unfocused Elon is. And at some point, it’s going to cost him.

Now over to that poll that asked Twitter users if he should step down as CEO. Well, he lost that poll:

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Now keep in mind that anything that Elon says cannot be trusted. Not even for a few minutes. And as a result, he could easily ignore this and continue the suicide mission that he and Twitter are on. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine that even Elon can want the chaos to continue indefinitely. In particular, the value of Tesla has halved over the past few months because of his Twitter escapades. And it’s cost him a lot in terms of his net worth. So he might be looking for an exit ramp that saves face. The thing is, he would still own Twitter, and anyone who would be stupid enough to become CEO of the company would just be his puppet who could be fired by him at any time based on whatever his whims are at that second. Thus even if he goes, the circus will still be in town because Elon won’t be going anywhere unless his investors / lenders force him out.

This entry was posted on December 19, 2022 at 8:37 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.