Elon Musk lives in an echo chamber of his own design–surrounded by yes men eager to tell him whatever he wants to hear. When Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, he brought in a host of advisors, from early Uber investor Jason Calacanis (who texted Musk that he would jump on a grenade for him) to former PayPal COO David Sacks and celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro. All were brimming with ideas on how Musk could turbo-charge Twitter’s potential.
The men agreed that Twitter needed to overhaul its infrastructure and its company culture. Free lunches, office lattes, content moderation policies, and the old verification system were all evidence of the “woke mind virus,” and had to go. They envisioned a free speech platform that prioritized creators and was far less dependent on ads. Musk, in renaming Twitter “X,” is a step closer to realizing his long-held vision of creating an “everything app” for communication and commerce. (I reached out to Calacanis and Spiro for comment on my forthcoming book which goes behind the scenes of the Twitter takeover, but they did not respond.)
A year and a half after the deal closed, X’s core offering remains unchanged. The product is the same as it was, albeit with more bugs (just three weeks ago the platform experienced yet another global outage) and worse ads (including a growing problem with ads promoting crypto spam, ironically one of the issues that has irked Musk for years, even before he bought the company). The company has seen a 72% decline in value since Musk acquired it, according to Fidelity.
Why has the acquisition been such an epic failure? First and foremost, running a social platform requires empathy–a quality Musk decidedly lacks. He centers his own desires in product development rather than those of the users and broader public. Last year, he diverted engineering resources toward finding out why his Super Bowl tweet did not get as many impressions as President Biden’s. Then, he reportedly dismissed the engineer whose data-driven theories were grounded in the idea that it was simply a popularity or likeability issue and not a fundamental algorithm flaw.
Musk has surrounded himself with sycophants who are too scared and self-interested to tell him the truth, challenge his convictions, or ever tell him that he is wrong. One of the stories I cover in my book about Musk’s Twitter takeover involves the alleged lack of relevant technical knowledge Musk brought in from the outside after firing many people with the requisite infrastructure skills. For example, the Tesla engineers who came in to take over believed that X could operate with one data center in the U.S., because that is what Tesla, a hardware company, apparently required. When X prioritized stability over speed, company executives determined it needed four.
Inappropriately firing employees who express anything other than blind support of Musk has cost X, too. Yao Yue, a former X engineer who I profile in my book, filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that X fired Yue in retaliation for a Slack message and corresponding tweet in which she urged her colleagues not to resign. In October, she was vindicated when the NLRB issued its first-ever complaint against X. If she wins her case, scheduled to be heard this month, she could receive months of backpay. Beyond Yue, several former X employees are suing Musk for $500 million, claiming that he did not legally pay them the severance they were owed when they were fired. When the media sought a response from X to these allegations, they received poop emojis–a policy announced by Musk on the platform. And in addition to these employee grievances, the Federal Trade Commission and the European Union are investigating X for failing to counter disinformation and being opaque about advertising practices. The company said that it was cooperating with the regulators and reiterated that it’s “focused on creating a safe and inclusive environment for all users… while protecting freedom of expression.”
Musk is spending his time moaning about the pitfalls of diversity and inclusion efforts, telling off advertisers at conferences, and restoring accounts of conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones. IBM, the EU, Comcast, and others have pulled their ads from the platform citing a rise in racist and antisemitic content. Tools meant to prevent harassment are unable to integrate. The CEO he brought on, Linda Yaccarino, appeared woefully unprepared to speak at the Code Conference–and didn’t seem to know exactly how many daily active users X had at the time. The number she shared, should it be believed, would be a decline from Musk’s own estimation months earlier.
Sadly, there are few people left in Musk’s orbit who can keep him in check. His lieutenants do not seem keen to improve a product, keep users safe, or even push for smart business decisions. Rather, they want to be in close proximity to power, money, or both. For those who are not there to stroke Musk’s ego, but to hold on to a job for visa or family reasons, speaking up is simply not an option. Musk might believe that the criticism he receives on X is an approximation of honest product feedback–but it’s not enough. As a result, one of the most powerful online platforms, and the Internet as a whole, will suffer.
Zoë Schiffer is the author of the upcoming book about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter.
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