Where Is The Value In Twitter?
Business
This wasn’t a distressed sale or purchase.
Twitter was a profitless advertising business founded 16 years ago that had been listed for nine years but increased revenue year on year. 2021 was a record year; revenue had doubled since 2017 – they had relatively little debt and a couple of billion in cash – it was still a bag of tweets, but it wasn’t a distressing situation.
There might be “an emergency fire drill,” but Musk lit the fires, threw away the extinguishers, and showed everyone to the fire exit.
The guy is bright, but this was an emotional purchase driven by his messiah complex. The reason he gave for buying Twitter, completing one of the biggest leveraged buyouts in history, was “to save humanity and civilization.” He would have been better off building a fleet of electric arks for the next great flood.
I appreciate that if you live in the Twitterverse, if that’s your primary input and output to society, when it gets a bit shittier because there are more ads, more bots, propaganda, and fake news, then you may feel that civilization is in jeopardy.
There are 206 million active daily users on Twitter.
Let’s say 50% aren’t bots (bots being the most active of accounts). That’s 103 million of the 7 billion+ people on earth. It’s not an accurate pulse.
103 million is not far off the population of the DR Congo – one of the most violent countries in the world where the minimum wage is $3 per day. I’m sure the people of the Congo have a different view of humanity than you and I.
Musk should head off to Antarctica for a week on a silent retreat.
Come back and appoint CEOs at the top of each business division – everyone has a price. The CEO role should be offered to the most significant achiever next year along with a chunk of equity. In the meantime, Musk concentrates on Tesla – his cash cow, which has butchers surrounding it as competition in the EV space heats up significantly, not just from a few start-ups with funny money but the big guys – nations.
The new Twitter bosses should then visit their 100 biggest clients (what were) not a memo or a tweet but a face-to-face visit.
Here is our renewed vision for the platform.
Moderation is the issue, and the “people” don’t seem to like top-down or none, so make it community-based. Users can report spam, trolls, and the offensive. There could be rewards involved.
In addition to a maximum character count, could there be a maximum post count per day? Cut the ground from under the feet of the spammers and bots.
The biggest of accounts – charge them – don’t pay them. Musk knows how much his Twitter account is worth to him…that’s the real reason he bought it – he couldn’t afford to be canceled like Trump.
Lastly, if wee Jimmy wants to follow Greenock Morton’s Twitter account and send Messi and Ronaldo a happy birthday message every year, he shouldn’t be charged the same as the CEO, who has 5 million followers and is using it as a business tool.
Written by Mel Sutton
Mel is the Founder & Managing Director of Altallo, a trading name of Argyll & Buchanan. He previously held roles at Morgan Stanley and Bank of New York Mellon.
He is a Chartered Banker of Scotland, has an MBA from Bangor Business School and is a time-served Welder having served his time in Govan Shipyard – which he often jokes was the real MBA.
Where Is The Value In Twitter?
