Elon Musk is demonstrating live online how to make small fortune owning a social media company – start with a HUGE one.  Making the rookie mistake of believing you can cut your way to success, Musk has wrought havoc at Twitter since acquiring it, firing half of the staff, making unreasonable demands of remaining employees, and slashing costs, even the ones that keep the platform running.  In addition to these mistakes, he’s run off billions of advertising dollars with TFG-like behavior and erratic decision making.  His full on MAGA management style and allowing white supremacists and hate merchants back on the platform has driven millions of normal people away.  Add that to banning any journalist who dares publicly criticize him, Twitter has become the North Korean photonegative of the the company he spent $44 billion to buy.

His most recent accomplishments are stopping paying the rent in some offices, closing data centers, and even firing janitorial staff, forcing employees to bring their own toilet paper to work.  He’s demanding that employees sleep at the office, and continues to run the company by online polls where millions of bots infest his platform, obviously voting in favor of his worst ideas, like allowing TFG back on.

Like others, I kept thinking that Musk is some kind of evil genius with a long-term plan to remake Twitter into a new payment platform.  It’s become apparent that this was either a pipe dream or a myth – he’s now facing a serious turnaround situation with no apparent skills to actually lead a turnaround.  Add his sociopathic behavior to this situation and he’s only making matters worse, not better.  To fund all this, he’s been dumping his Tesla stock which has contributed to its price plummeting 70% in 2022.  To be fair, blue chip and tech stocks have been pounded this year, but Musk’s goofy behavior and selling has greatly displeased investors.

All this is to say that behavior of companies’ senior management matters and the being wealthy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart.  This multi-billion dollar soap opera is far from over, and it remains to be seen if Musk is going to be one of the surviving members of the cast.