opinion
Twitter owner
From star entrepreneur to internet troll – the fall of Elon Musk
Elon Musk has come under massive criticism since taking over Twitter
© Britta Pedersen/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa-pool/DPA
The richest man in the world is disappearing more and more into a world of conspiracy theories and internet trolls. This is also becoming a problem for Elon Musk’s other companies.
By Nils Kreimeier
It’s an irritating scene, one that makes others ashamed: Last Sunday, the US comedian Dave Chapelle called Elon Musk onto the stage at a big show in San Francisco – the star entrepreneur, head of the car manufacturer Tesla and new owner of Twitter. There are 18,000 people in the hall, and the presenter apparently expects a euphoric reception: “Make some noise for the richest man in the world!” Musk spreads his arms in a heroic pose, expecting homage.
But then something happens that neither he nor Chapelle had expected: the majority of the audience in the hall began to boo and whistle loudly. And not just at the beginning, but every time Musk tries to speak. The moderator tries to cover up the embarrassing situation with a few crude jokes, but at some point there’s nothing left to save. The Tesla boss seems helpless in the face of the whistle, the viewer feels sorry.
Elon Musk – a man who has always made a living from having a huge fan base, being treated as a genius, being admired, has reached a very dangerous point. Ever since he made Twitter his newest toy, the paint has been peeling off this pillar of entrepreneurship.
Musk’s start on Twitter was at least erratic
Musk’s entrepreneurial start on Twitter is only insufficiently described as erratic. Mass layoffs in all departments, some of which are then taken back. The attempt to monetize the blue tick, which was previously used to verify celebrity accounts – a step that was initially reversed after thousands of charlatans had false identities confirmed. The reopening of Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which has been suspended since the Capitol storm – but now refuses to take action there. The statement that Twitter may face bankruptcy.
All of this could still be ticked off under Musk’s typical spontaneous management; Even at Tesla there have always been phases in which the entrepreneur seemed to have overreached himself completely, only to be successful after all. In addition, however, there is now a strange twist in content that leaves large parts of the fan community at a loss. Just a few examples from Musk’s timeline, who apparently has a lot of time to tweet: He exchanged pleasantries with the Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, who is one of the biggest agitators in the war against Ukraine and the West. He advised Ukraine to bow to the demands of the Russian aggressor, although he had not previously been conspicuous with knowledge of the region. He described the US Democrats as a party “of division and hatred”. And most recently, in a strange tweet, Musk called for the US virologist and Covid expert Anthony Fauci to be brought to justice – for whatever reason.
In these public statements, the star entrepreneur now seems like a muddlehead sinking into conspiracy theories, a former good friend who you can no longer really take seriously and whose tweets you simply switch off at some point. Even the applause in ultra-conservative circles and right-wing circles is rather limited – even there it seems that Musk’s metamorphosis from darling of the more liberal Silicon Valley to Trumpistic Internet troll is not to be trusted.
Of course, all of this can still be corporate strategy, perhaps an attempt to tap into the large community of Trump disciples, Covid skeptics and Russia fans. If that is the case, however, this shot has backfired so far.
Tesla’s market value has halved
For someone who can move stock exchanges, it’s not just a question of image, it’s about crazy sums of money. At the beginning of April, Musk announced the outrageously expensive takeover of Twitter at $44 billion. Since then, the market capitalization of his flagship Tesla has halved. Not everything about this crash is Twitter related, tech stocks in general have struggled in this difficult year. But few have been hit as hard and relentlessly as Musk, who is used to success. Several of Twitter’s major advertising agencies and advertisers have put their work with the network on hold for the time being.
In addition, an image as a right-wing troll is also likely to limit Musk’s opportunities to land government contracts – a business that plays an important role for the entrepreneur with his space company SpaceX and other companies. Musk has benefited like no other from the state-sponsored trend towards electromobility, which Joe Biden’s government now wants to fuel with further subsidies. And this government is in office for at least two more years.
The question remains as to what actually moves Musk, this often brilliant, sometimes crazy but in the past always open-minded man. Is there a corrective missing here, a supervisory board that could contain him or just a good friend who takes him aside and asks what’s actually going on?
American publicist Julia Ioffe put it perhaps most accurately: “Think how much therapy $44 billion could have bought you,” Ioffe wrote. The sentence was published on Twitter.