There are attention seekers and there are filthy rich people. It is evident that Elon Musk has both the traits in abundance. Ever since taking charge of Twitter, he has been taking way too many impulsive decisions.
First he rolled out $8 blue checkmark verification for all and rolled it back just 2 days later.
Musk’s decision to sell blue check marks meant that impersonators were at large. For example, an imposter with medical giant, Eli Lilly handle name got the blue check mark. A tweet from the imposter of Eli Lilly read “Insulin is free now” and it resulted in the company losing billions of dollars in its market cap as the shares value fell by 5%.
Aerospace defence company Lockheed Martin lost several billions when a tweet from an imposter with their company name read the company would halt weapons sale to Saudi and Israel pending further investigation on their human rights record. Their shares fell by 5%.
The $8 blue tick mark idea is a disaster. All the while, Twitter blue tick-mark was given to verfied individuals and companies and it had credibility and more importantly trustability. But the idea to sell the blue check mark in the name of free speech meant anyone had access to the otherwise credible service.
After understanding the magnitude of the fault, Musk quickly rolled back the feature.
At Tesla and SpaceX, Musk had a larger than life aspiration and it propelled him to make great progress. But at Twitter, he appears to be seeing it like child play with impulsive decisions that are lasting days and even hours. Even small companies don’t do something so silly like what Musk is doing with a social media giant like Twitter.
