How Elon Musk Twitter hits the wall Real wages fall due to inflation despite wage increases

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Elon Musk said: “I like to play the idiot on Twitter. Sometimes I shoot myself in the foot and get in trouble. I find it therapeutic in a way when I express myself on Twitter. It’s my way of communicating with the public.”

Musk often tries to be funny. For example, if he appears in the main building with a sink and wants to express that everything is going to be different now. (Brief explanation: “Sink” in English, and the expression “to sink in” means “it becomes clear”.)

Musk’s jokes are often embarrassing, to put it politely. He describes himself as “Chief Twit”. (Again, quick explanation: Twit is an English expression for “idiot”.)

Empathy is a strange word for Elon Musk

Musk is certainly a genius inventor and entrepreneur. However, he has a dark side and admits that he suffers from a mild form of Asperger’s syndrome. His social behavior is just as clumsy as his jokes and above all completely devoid of empathy. In his 2015 biography of Musk, Ashlee Vance describes how ruthlessly Musk treats his employees, such as firing his longtime secretary with a text message — and Vance wrote no dismantling Musk. Instead, he tried to portray him in a positive light.

In his entrepreneurial behavior Musk is a cold-blooded pragmatist, in his political behavior he becomes an unsecured hand grenade. Recently, he has been involved in American politics. So he now openly sided with the Republicans. Or he dabbles in the geopolitical arena by making crazy peace proposals to the Ukrainians.

So now Musk is not only the richest man in the world, he also owns Twitter and has become the master of the most politically influential social platform. That’s where the fun ends, clumsy as it may be.

Hours after taking over Twitter outright, Musk has proven how misguided he is as the platform’s new owner. First, he announced wholeheartedly that Twitter would be open to everyone again. He once described the banning of Donald Trump and other right-wing hate figures as “morally wrong, and in plain language: extremely stupid”. But hate and anti-Semitic tweets have already increased by 500 percent.

Top Twitter executives have resigned

As the new owner, Musk assured that he would not turn Twitter into a “hell hole” for right-wing extremists, only to tweet an absurd conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi shortly after. He has since deleted the tweet, but the damage remains. Top executives have announced, or have already done so, that they are leaving Twitter. Musk himself fired the CEO. How many of the 7,500 employees will suffer the same fate is a matter of speculation.

The fate of the dismissed employees will hardly hinder the partly autistic Musk, but the behavior of the advertisers will. These too have announced a mass exodus. IPG, one of the world’s largest advertising agencies, has advised its clients to temporarily suspend their ads on Twitter. These customers include Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Mattel and Spotify.

American companies shun politics like the devil avoids holy water. Extreme right-wing media such as Breitbart or Newsmax hardly advertise the Fortune 500 companies. With Musk, Twitter is thrown into the same pot and will now suffer the same fate as Trump. He is personally connected to the company and so fell like a hot potato through the advertisers.

Another major US advertising agency, the Interpublic Group of Cos., told its clients, according to the Wall Street Journal, “The situation on Twitter is unpredictable and chaotic at the moment. In these circumstances, bad guys and inappropriate behavior thrive. As a result, we cannot currently recommend Twitter as a safe place for respected brands.”

Advertising is Twitter’s main source of income – and the company is in dire need of money. Musk bought it at the worst possible time — right before tech stocks crashed — and paid way too much for it. Now the already heavily indebted company also has to pay for the interest on the capital, which was partly borrowed for the takeover.

This calculation is incorrect. Musk therefore wants to tap into new sources of financing. Specifically, he wants to persuade his users to pay a monthly fee of eight dollars. The response to these plans has not been encouraging. “Why should I spend eight dollars to be bullied on Twitter?” Trevor Noah joked on his Daily Show. He hit the nail on the head with that. According to the Wall Street Journal, a survey of 1.9 million Twitter users found that 80 percent of those polled replied, “We won’t pay.”

Elon Musk will not impoverish

With Tesla, Musk not only proved his genius, but he became at least partially a hero of the left-liberal scene. Driving a Tesla has long been synonymous with being environmentally conscious. With his clumsy approach to Twitter, Musk has damaged this reputation for good. Left liberals will now think twice about buying a Tesla or not, and they have plenty of options from other suppliers these days.

Elon Musk will not become a poor man because of this. His net worth is still estimated at over $200 billion. However, with his actions on Twitter he proved what we also know from Switzerland, for example from Christoph Blocher: A successful entrepreneur is not necessarily a successful publisher.