An imaginary conversation with Elon Musk.

Elon Musk bought Twitter. Depending where you’re at on the evil billionaire-free speech spectrum (EBFSS) this is either the cause of all bad things from here on or ripping power from the cultural elites. Deliberatus has thoughts, so I sat down for an imaginary interview with new Chief Twit, Elon Musk. We didn’t begin by discussing the layoffs Musk instituted barely one week into his ownership.

EM: Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.

D: I don’t disagree with you there. I think the simplicity of using Twitter—tap a button, share an opinion—tricked us into viewing the company like a cute nonprofit that would hum along so we could keep tweeting. In reality Twitter was Ned Stark in the Game of Thrones. We all liked him. But he’s not going to keep his head in a fight with the Lannisters.

To be more blunt, Twitter the company was run extremely poorly by Dorsey, Argawal and so many above and below them for the past decade. The whole fact that we’re even in the situation where the company was susceptible to your taking it private proves it. The stock consistently trailed NASDAQ and the S&P. They only turned an annual profit twice since going public for fuck’s sake.

Even hindsight doesn’t help us understand what those leaders wanted the company to be. Twitter is an ad-supported business with last place ad technology. Where was its leadership during the era when other companies spun user data into gold? Where was its Board of Directors to hold them accountable for missing that boat? Why did it take until the year 2021 for Twitter to commit to building a direct response ad product? These failures are inexcusable and led us directly to where we sit today: They’re out, you’re in.

Firing half the company is a drastic cut, and you were a coward to not sign the email or speak to the whole company before letting them go. I want to be emphatically clear about that: You were and continue to be a coward for not speaking to the staff at Twitter. Even Ned Stark swung the sword. But I think people who put the whole blame on you are blind to the fact that it’s 50 percent because it was never 10 or 20 percent under Dorsey. Or because he didn’t have the vision necessary to grow the company in a way that made your ownership impossible. That’s on him, and I think all of us who watch the tech space need to stop viewing him as anything other than a man ill-equipped to play the game of business and build an ad-supported tech company, which I’m sure you’re seeing the effects of now.

EM: Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.

D: Look, Elon, I know your other businesses do no advertising but you can’t be this oblivious to reality. That’s simply not how advertising decisions work. It’s not even the right question.

EM: Advertisers should support freedom of speech or political correctness?

D: I guarantee you there’s not one advertiser who thinks about it that way. It’s not their job. Their responsibility is to their brand and their accountability is to the result they’re asked to deliver. That’s it.

Maybe it will help you to look at it like this. Advertising spend is an investment, and investments come with risk. You know that very well, you just made a $44 billion one. Every ad campaign risks failure to drive its KPI, so that’s already built in to advertisers’ decisions. The freewheeling nature of Twitter adds another layer of risk because you don’t know if your ads are going to show up next to something awful or if bad news will overtake the platform and make you look out of touch.

Regardless of what is or isn’t happening with content moderation—

EM: Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press.

—your own tweets are ratcheting up that risk profile way beyond what many brands will be willing to accept. In just your first weekend at the helm you tweeted a homophobic conspiracy theory and a cartoon penis. That’s bad. Statements like “free speech or political correctness" give your army of fans permission to unleash their fury on companies who stop advertising with you. It also shows to me that you understand the power this platform has, and that you’re willing to use it for your own ends, but I would bet my RSUs that you’re not willing to acknowledge it can be used for very bad ends.

What your continued freebased tweeting does though, and you need to acknowledge this thoroughly, is damage your credibility with marketers. Hours before posting that tweet you reportedly met with major CMOs and had a productive conversation. Then you threatened them with thermonuclear war. Now they’re wondering which is the real Elon. The guy in the phone call and conciliatory tweet or the guy willing to drag them into your personal culture war if they don’t agree with you?

I don’t know if your innermost circle of advisors is the team of yes-men some make it out to be, but if it is you have to let the impact of these tweets perforate that bubble because you are making that risk profile hotter and hotter. And let me tell you, Twitter advertising does not produce enough upside to make that risk tolerable for very long.

I want to get back to the point about the prevalence of hateful content. You’ve said numerous times the policies haven’t changed and has at times even declined. But why not make that data public? You have to acknowledge that there are people who will never believe you without concrete data.

EM: It’s very difficult to satisfy extremists unless you buy into what their dogma is.*

D: 100 percent. I think you can crush their dogma with radical transparency. There would have to be research value in a real-time or near real-time dashboard for Twitter’s internal data like that if it’s available to academics and journalists. I know you’re not a big believe in PR teams so this seems like a way to productize internal data in a way that could actually help insulate you from unfounded or out-of-context claims like we’ve seen in the past week—if they are indeed unfounded. Because, again, we don’t have access to this data ourselves. We wouldn’t know of it at all if not for you or other twits selectively tweeting about it.

Because here’s the thing: Everyone is watching you know and they all hate you. They’re not going to be fair to you. Journalists, political opponents and critics are all going to shape a narrative as predictable as time: Billionaire right winger bought our beloved Twitter and turned it into a hellscape. Made us pay for our blue checkmarks. I could have told you that in April, and you had to have known it, too. So I have to say you’re decision to fight that narrative with dickery instead of relentless fact and transparency is a head scratcher.

EM: Being attacked by both right & left simultaneously is a good sign.

D: That’s not going to get you anywhere. No one responsible for marketing revenue thinks that way. They don’t care about you balancing the political tightrope. Stop pretending to be some great centrist.

EM: If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if Trump is coming back on this platform, Twitter would be minting money!

D: You’ve got to know that’s the red line for a lot of advertisers. Not because they’re pro- or anti-Trump [editor’s note: They are anti-Trump] but because of three main reasons. First is the fear of what it would do to the atmosphere on the platform and what kind of content would be adjacent to their ads. No amount of re-assurance from you will ever convince them the platform is fine after that. Unless you take my advice and show them the data. Second is the number of leftwing users who would leave in protest. To pervert a line from Michael Jordan, Democrats buy shoes, too. Advertisers won’t be as willing to spend on the platform with out them. The last reason is quasi-political, and that is that most large corporate advertisers are more afraid of the political left than the right. Love it or hate it, that’s the truth. If you let Trump on the platform the calls to dissociate with a company that allows him to spew his message will reach deafening volume. Advertisers will listen. And it will decimate your company’s revenue.

You need to understand that completely. If these antagonistic tweets toward advertisers are laying the groundwork for that, you’d better have an incredible rabbit up your sleeve to save your investment in this company. I don’t want to engage in hyperbole but letting Trump back on Twitter could be the end of the platform.

EM: It could be one of the most valuable companies in the world.

D: I really don’t see how that’s possible. Twitter doesn’t have anything remotely close to what Apple and Amazon provide, or operate in a business like oil or health care.

It could have…maybe. This all does go back to the failed leadership from previous Twitter teams. I don’t think you can find one media buyer who would rate Twitter’s ads product above last place among digital platforms. It is over par in every way. The native ads manager tool is basic at best. Conversion tracking and attribution is only recently getting off the ground years after everyone else. It offers absolutely no automation or dynamic capabilities, leaving the campaign creation and optimization process entirely manual. Failure to build a scalable, ROI-generating platform cost the company billions in performance marketing revenue. You have your work cut out for you if you think that’s possible on Twitter as it exists now. I don’t believe it is.

EM: How do we get 80 percent of the public to join a digital town square to voice their opinion and exchange ideas?

D: I don’t think that’s possible either. Not in this version of Twitter. What reason would there be for 80 percent of the population to use the service as it currently stands?

EM: I think it is important to have a digital town square where people feel comfortable talking.

D: I don’t think there’s a demand for that. You’re portraying the TAM as the entire population, but this isn’t voting or having a Social security number. There’s a finite number of people who want to log on to a virtual town square with enough regularity to attract advertisers. You’re going to have to create a lot more revenue streams than $8 a month verification to be successful at this.

Speaking of the new Twitter Blue, I think you’re on the right track. A premium level of Twitter isn’t necessarily a bad idea. I just don’t see much value it it other than the checkmark.

EM: The net effect will be the verified users will always be at the top of comments and search, and you’ll have to scroll very far to see the unverified users. This is sort of analogous to Google search.

D: I’ve heard you talk about that, how putting more verified users at the top of Twitter will inevitably push the bad down. I think that’s a lofty vision. I see how it would be good for Twitter the business. $96 a year from millions of users. But what’s the value to me the user? I see almost none.

“Twice as relevant ads”? What does that even mean? How do you plan to pitch that to advertisers? There are a lot of unanswered questions here, and I don’t expect you to have them in nine days. But I want to hear your vision about where this company will go. Beyond the blue checkmarks. Beyond moderation. What is your plan for this business? How are you going to make it into one that’s bigger and more valuable than when you bought it?

EM: Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.

D: Respectfully, sir, that’s not a business plan.

EM: At the end of the day, if Twitter is indeed the most accurate source of information, more people will use it.

D: That barely counts as one. You sound like an underpants gnome right now.

EM: Twitter user numbers have increased significantly around the world since the deal was announced. And these are very early days. As Twitter becomes by far the most reliable source of truth, it will be indispensable.

D: Interesting idea, but you bought Twitter for $44 billion and Wikipedia already exists. Let that sink in.

It was there our imaginary interview ended. My last point is the thing to keep in mind whenever people talk about Musk-era Twitter. He paid $44 billion for the company. What makes Twitter a $45 billion company? It’s not Twitter Blue. It’s not antagonizing advertisers. How is he going to do this?

As readers can tell, Deliberatus is torn on this whole topic. I desperately believe Twitter the business needs a serious overhaul. I don’t believe Musk is the one to deliver it. I love the platform too much to not care.

I will keep deliberating.

*Quotes without links come from an interview Musk gave to some billionaire ass kisser last week. I found it on the clean side of YouTube but would be more appropriate on OnlyFans for how sensually Ron Baron applied his tongue to Elon’s private areas.