The Bird has flown. And there go half the nestlings. That man is so strange

[dreamshark]

It really looks like The Chief Twit is literally determined to destroy Twitter. First he bombastically Freed the Bird and then he massacred his new organization in an unprecedented overnight orgy of messy layoffs. Who fires HALF THEIR EMPLOYEES during what's supposed to be an orderly transition? Unsurprisingly, the avian advertisers are now frantically flying the coop, taking most of the company's revenue with it.  

But why on earth would Musk do this? He knew the company was losing money when he bought it, and clearly had no viable plan to reverse that (I don't think that alienating all of his main sources of cash and firing half the employees counts as a viable plan, although accomplishing all that within the first week is an impressive show of energy). So presumably he intended it as a hobby, not a business. Okay, fair enough. When you are "the richest man on earth" you can spend your money on anything that amuses you, whether it's private bowling alleys in the basement or a campaign to stamp out malaria or getting all the grownups out of the way so you can play games with an online megaphone. But he keeps issuing these confusing statements about "needing a source of revenue."  WTF?  

Maybe the surprising thing is actually that this coked-up human battering ram was ever able to run a business successfully. Anyway, it should be fun to watch the death spiral. I never hated Twitter, but at this point I'm just as glad to see it go. It was a fun experiment but in the end I'm afraid the damage that it caused outweighed the fun. 

And it is so nice to see people taking this moment to return to my own favorite social media. Welcome back, friends! Let's talk!

Comments

[quadong]

I don't get the mechanics of firing half of the employees. Did everyone with an odd ID number get fired? Or was every manager told to lay off the bottom half of their team? If that, was it done starting at the bottom and working upwards so that half the managers got fired, too? Or did they fire everyone who does actual work, leaving only managers? Or were some divisions just entirely fired?