Photo illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images.
After Elon Musk agreed to step down after a Twitter poll asking if he should step down, and 57.5% of the 17 million respondents said yes, the question is who should lead the troubled company and how can he convince anyone to do so.
In April, one candidate who told Musk to be Twitter’s CEO was tech investor Jason Calakanis, who sent his own Twitter comment — the emoji was funny — that he, investor and former techie David Sachs, or “another” CEO should be called. Surprisingly, the majority of respondents voted “other”.
He later tweeted, perhaps jokingly, “Who wants the most miserable job in tech and media?! Who’s crazy enough to run Twitter?!?!” Another user tweeted that tech investor Joe Lonsdale should get his job, replying: “Lol, no thanks.” There doesn’t seem to be much interest in the job from people who have the skills to run the company.
Shares in Tesla have fallen 18 percent this week and are down more than 60 percent since Musk announced his plan to buy Twitter. It ends badly. Musk now owns $52 billion in Tesla shares.
Even NASA officials are beginning to question whether the changes on Twitter are distracting from life-or-death issues affecting decision-making at SpaceX.
On Dec. 20, longtime Tesla investor Ross Gerber tweeted that the move was timed: “The stock price now reflects the value without a CEO.”
Clearly, there are many challenges ahead for Musk at Twitter, but one that needs to be addressed immediately is attracting a core base of advertisers to the platform. The company is clearly in turmoil with employees being let go left and right and the bread and butter makers of Twitter’s business – abandoning ship in droves.
A shocking statistic from researcher Pathmatics was recently published in The Wall Street Journal—approximately 70% of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers did not spend on Twitter in the week ending December 18th. For weeks, they couldn’t persuade them to come back.
Given that 90% of Twitter’s $5.1 billion in revenue last year came from advertising, this should be Musk’s top priority, not figuring out whose account should be suspended or reinstated. Twitter is offering to match up to $1 million worth of ads to some advertisers if they do so by the end of the year. However, even this economic lure was not enough to bring many back on board.
Musk’s team has reached out to advertisers and told them they’re innovating to get users to make direct purchases, add more video capabilities, and keep objectionable content from appearing next to their ads.
Some ad buyers have said they will wait until these tools are ready before deciding to return to Twitter, especially as we head into the recession. Speaking on Twitter on Tuesday, Musk said that advertisers are demanding huge returns on their ad spend. “Their questions are vague or illogical or nothing. They are very reasonable. “
However, some advertisers have complained about the politicization of Twitter, especially after Musk said free-thinking voters voted for a Republican congressman ahead of the midterm elections.
