drama or democracy?
Democracy in Action or Well-Calculated Decision? Elon Musk offered Internet users a choice from Sunday to Monday night: “Should I resign from the position of Twitter leader?” “. The polls were open until noon French time. The majority chose “yes” (57.5%).
Hours after the vote went live, Elon Musk began threatening: “This is not about finding a CEO, it’s about finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive,” “Be careful what you wish for, because it could happen.” He even explains that “nobody wants a job keeping Twitter alive. There is no heir.”
Is the billionaire in a panic? Far from it. After he bought Twitter, the decisions he made and their consequences caused a lot of noise. Between experiments and rule changes, users get lost in innovation. Like a blue certificate badge. It has become paid, now accompanied by certificates in several colors…
Many decisions are made to worsen the crisis of confidence. Last week, Elon Musk shut down his @ElonJet account and about 20 other accounts in pursuit of the billionaire’s private jets. Shortly afterwards, Twitter changed its rules to retroactively justify this decision, now banning “real-time location sharing”. However, he assured in early November that these types of accounts would never be banned. At the same time, Musk closed the accounts of the journalists he accused doxxing (disclosure of personal information for malicious purposes). This caused the anger of the United Nations and the European Union, which threatened him with sanctions.
On Sunday, as the culmination of this crazy week, it announced that it will ban users from posting links to competing social networks like Facebook, Mastodon or Instagram.
Musk never planned to run Twitter
Faced with so much opposition, it seems logical that netizens would vote for him to go as leader. However, Elon Musk, who presents himself as a defender of freedom of expression, is careful not to remind Internet users of certain points. Starting with the fact that he never wanted to be the leader of Twitter.
During Tesla’s golden parachute lawsuit (he hasn’t received a salary since 2012, but received $52 billion in stock as compensation), he declared under oath in mid-November that he doesn’t want to be. “the leader of any company”. Especially from the social network: “I intend to spend less and less time there and find someone to lead Twitter in the long term.”
Another point not raised is the value of Twitter, both literally and figuratively. The boss of Tesla and SpaceX lives by his actions in the stock market and reminds him regularly. Elon Musk is well aware that his tweets can affect stock prices. And he benefited from it financially.
However, the takeover caused quite a stir, with Elon Musk even trying to reverse the $44 billion takeover of Twitter. Which turned out to be impossible from a legal point of view. He was cornered, he had to pay.
Tesla was very impressed
His decisions as “head of Twitter” increasingly influence his other companies, Tesla and SpaceX. So last week’s run sent Tesla shares to a 52-week low on the stock market, recalls The Verge : $150 per share or a 50% loss in one year.
Mechanically, this loss of value reduced the valuation of Elon Musk’s wealth. Thus, the richest man in the world became the Frenchman Bernard Arnault (head of LVMH) and his family. The weight of an American is more than 163 billion, which is half less than last year.
But above all, it is Tesla and, in fact, the foundations of his empire that have been undermined by Twitter. One of Tesla’s majority shareholders, KoQuan Leo, a self-proclaimed “Elon fan,” threw a small bomb : “Elon left Tesla” and “Tesla no longer has a leader”. And to add: “I hope Elon finds a new leader for Twitter soon.” What panics the market, shareholders and employees.
As for SpaceX, the site’s dependence on public funding is a concern, especially at NASA. If sanctions are imposed on Elon Musk, can the contracts continue without problems?
It should be noted that the billionaire started buying Twitter after voting on the social network. Leaving the leadership on the ballot goes full circle. At least for now. Because Musk reminds us that the platform is “on the road to bankruptcy” as of this Sunday in response to computer scientist Lex Friedman. Is it waving to scare? Or to prepare for resale? We have not heard the song of the blue bird.
