Will his noble intentions get “trumped”?
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Last week, we asked the question: Will Elon be the dog that caught the bus?
We opined that — of the key assets that Musk is buying — all are a bit problematic.
- The brand name is polarizing and arguably passé
- The subscriber base is largely populated by left-leaning media and politicos … and woke, pro-censorship loyalists who are likely to defect from an open information platform.
- Ditto for advertisers, many (most?) of which are likely to “go Disney” and run for the hills rather than risk being outed as inadequately woke … or worse than that, being taint-branded as supporting free speech.
- The hardware infrastructure — computers and communications network — are in place and operation .. but replicable.
- The software — think: message transmission and control algorithms — are up & running … and being managed.
- The human assets — proficient and mission-dedicated — are the biggest question marks given their zeal for progressive politics and “moderated discourse”
That gets us to Musk’s biggest challenge: Getting the organization aligned with his “open forum” vision … and, operating for (not against) Musk’s goals.
Consider an analogy: Trump’s efforts to mobilize the Federal government to his America First agenda.
Please, let’s stipulate to, but put aside, Trump’s personality issues and focus on his policies.
Trump was actively sabotaged by the enforcement agencies — think: “Intelligence Community”, FBI, IRS — and slow-rolled by the career bureaucrats who make “the system” work (or, not work depending on your perspective).
Remember Chuckie Schumer’s admonition to Trump:
“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” Source
It’s easy to imagine Musk running into similar roadblocks as he tries to shift Twitter 180 degrees from politically moderated discourse to an open forum of alternative views.
Twitter has about 7,000 employees that will need to buy into Musk’s vision.
That’s a reach given their numbers, their technical expertise, their access to the algorithms … and, oh yeah, their deeply embedded political leanings.
Getting them on board (or replaced) will be a monumental organizational transformation.
The good news: If anybody can do it, it’s probably Musk.
Go get ‘em, Elon.
The Homa Files 
April 26, 2022 at 4:41 pm |
The most important thing Musk can do on Twitter is to shut down the bots, which tended to propagate the worst of the worst on the platform. That was hard to do as a public company that needs to show growth. Those bots drive outrage, which drives scale. There are technical and policy solutions to combat those problems if you’re not afraid of the growth tradeoffs.
Once you do that, you are left with a public square that is just people. It may be a smaller square with fewer “voices”, but they will be actual people. If he can get there, this becomes a more manageable situation and one that is safer for brand advertisers.