The richest man in the world, Elon Muskis notoriously involved in the troubled social media acquisition process Twitter. While the financial side is progressively brought forward by lawyers and diplomacy, Musk organized a first digital meeting with the company’s employees, in order to answer questions and reveal his entrepreneurial vision.
Musk tells Twitter employees about his plans
In April, when the well-known billionaire had made the purchase proposal, not all employees of the portal had welcomed the news with joy. Indeed, the protests were fairly vocal. It was therefore time that Musk stood in front of the approximately 8,000 workers to try to create a direct confrontation with his future subordinates, however his message was not the most reassuring.
Presenting himself at the video call with 10 minutes late, the entrepreneur spilled information on those present that partially contradicts what he said in the past, but, above all, announced that a “Rationalization of the workforce”. In practice: layoffs determined by the results obtained in relation to a hypothetical performance bar. Pressed on the subject, the man did not want to make explicit his desire to exempt any subject, however he laconically pointed out that “right now the costs exceed the revenues and this is not an optimal situation”. In all of this, he was keen to let us know that only “excellent” employees will have the right to work remotely from home.
Unsurprisingly, at that point no one asked him difficult questions regarding how he actually wants to behave in relation to the negotiation with the social network, much less did anyone dare to deepen the heavy accusations that the eccentric rich man has suffered from SpaceX employees. . Also because the main perpetrators of these accusations were fired quickly.
Change of course on the management of advertisements
Musk has revealed in the past that he hates ads and to consider a future in which Twitter would be ad-free. Forget it. Accounts in hand and in the perennial search for investors to cover the costs of the acquisition, the billionaire must have noticed that it is extremely difficult to radically change the monetization system of a portal, especially if said portal does not already shine for financial results.
The entrepreneur therefore claimed to do not be absolutely hostile to the ad model, but rather that these are – together with the inscriptions – the key to the survival of the social network. At best, the future owner of the site has announced that he wants to focus on advertisements that do not advertise “bad products” and that are characterized by a high entertainment value. Among the virtuous reference points was TikTok, which was praised precisely because “it is not boring”.
Fewer professionals, more consumption
For a long time, Twitter has been touted as a social media dedicated to institutions, ideal for promoting formal activities such as journalism and politics. The fact that you are considering moving towards entertainment therefore suggests one profound revolution of reference users. Newspapers and diplomats who repudiate infotainment and sensationalism do not generate large traffic, do not amuse themselves with mesmerizing contents, on the contrary they often propose complex and profound issues that reach only a minority of web users. In a nutshell, quality pays less than superficiality, at least in those contexts where the attention economy dominates.
In this sense, Twitter already offers services such as super follows, ticketed spaces and the ability to send small donations to the various profiles on the platform, however the “content creators” have never seen social media as a useful platform until now. create an Internet career. Musk seems to want to reverse this trend, proposing for nothing but the verification of the accounts is conditioned by a subscription system.
Musk’s Twitter must be one with everyday life
The direction taken by Elon Musk may be suggested to us by some observations full of praise expressed towards WeChat, one of the most popular apps within the Chinese community, as well as social with an extraordinarily widespread reach. WeChat is used for messaging, as a social network, but also as a post-modern shopping center and as a digitized payment system.
With immediate information cleared, current Twitter employees investigated the billionaire’s political visions, to which Musk replied that he always voted for the Democrats, but also to wanting to open the portal to extreme visions. Incidentally, polarized opinions are also those that generate the most traffic and, therefore, the greatest economic returns. The comparison therefore moved briefly to the possible existence of aliens until it ended without too many ceremonies. In retrospect, Bloomberg notes, Twitter’s Slack channel was animated by a “fierce debate” through which Twitter workers shared their views on the positions of what could be their future boss.