• HBP# IM1396

IMD-7-2537
03.01.2024

HAS ELON MUSK

X’D OUT?

Researcher Kathe Sweeney and Professor Stefan Michel prepared this case as a
basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling
of a business situation.

Copyright © 2024 by IMD – International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland
(www.imd.org). No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form
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HAS ELON MUSK X’D OUT?

Imagine a single app that would allow you to keep up to date with world events, find a
new job, conduct work conference calls, message with friends, stream shows from
AppleTV, post videos, shop for products and services, take out a loan, invest in the stock
market and get cash from your bank.

Elon Musk stated this vision when he purchased all shares of Twitter in October 2022 for
$44 billion and took the company private:

“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” Musk

tweeted on October 2, 2022, adding that it “probably accelerates [the
development of] X by 3 to 5 years.” 1

In July 2023, Elon Musk officially rebranded Twitter as X, adding it to his portfolio of
businesses which include Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, The Boring Company and Neuralink
Corporation.

In rebranding Twitter to X, Musk took his most public step toward transforming Twitter –
with its 396 million users in 2021 – into a super app. Super apps have seen success
primarily in Asia in the form of Tencent’s WeChat, South Korea’s Kakao and Singapore’s
Grab, yet nowhere else. Although a number of tech moguls – such as Meta’s Mark
Zuckerberg, Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi and Snap’s Evan Spiegel – have attempted to
build a super app for the US, not one has managed to overcome the regulatory and
cultural obstacles posed by the US market. 2

Yet, Elon Musk had a track record of succeeding where others fail, if we consider SpaceX
and Tesla. He was a big thinker, took satisfaction from solving impossible problems and
also happened to be the richest man in the world. 3 He was also considered a superhero
by many of his 157 million followers on X, who seemed to perceive him as a singular
bold visionary on a mission to save the world. Even Twitter’s ex-CEO Jack Dorsey voiced
support for Elon’s takeover bid when he tweeted, “Elon is the singular solution I trust. I
trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.” 4

At the same time, many were worried about the future of Twitter under Musk, citing
concerns about hate speech, harassment and data privacy on the platform. The Network
Contagion Research Institute reported that within 12 hours of closing the deal to acquire
Twitter, the use of the N-word on Twitter increased by nearly 500%. 5 Others like Paul
Barrett, deputy director of New York University Stern’s Center for Business and Human
Rights, cited Musk’s own history of using the platform to insult people, calling him a
“premier Twitter troll.” 6 Former Harvard Business School professor and author Shoshana
Zuboff pointed out the dangers to user privacy when a single person controls a platform
with unregulated data collection. 7

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HAS ELON MUSK X’D OUT?

THE LEADING MICROBLOGGING PLATFORM AND ITS

EARLY CONTROVERSIES
When Twitter was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, they
did not have a clear vision of its market potential. In a 2009 interview about Twitter’s
origin story, Evan Williams shared:

We got asked how big the market for blogging is…The point is [that we
believed that] if we do something awesome then lots more people will do
it. With Twitter, who knew? There was no market. 8

Yet by the end of 2022, the platform boasted over 396 million users and changed the
way many people consumed news or spoke their minds on the web. Twitter’s little blue
bird became more than just a logo; it fostered a new lexicon for using the service. Twitter
was “the bird app,” and posts were “tweets” that you wrote by tapping a feather icon.

Twitter’s foundation was its users, who shared information on the platform and got
access to real-time short information from around the world, for free. It was so valuable
for spreading real-time information quickly that it was used by protestors during the 2010
Arab Spring to organize demonstrations. Influencers – like Kim Kardashian and Elon
Musk – both attracted users to the platform and used the platform to share their views
and build their following. To signal the legitimacy of celebrity and influencer accounts to
their Twitter fans, Twitter created a special “blue tick” badge specifically for influencer
accounts as verification that the accounts were legitimate. Beyond individuals and
influencers, businesses, brands and app developers also benefited from the platform.
News organizations used the platform to provide breaking news, and the National
Weather Service used it to provide weather warnings. Businesses used the platform as
a channel for building their brand and connecting with their customers. Small- and large-
scale app developers used Twitter’s free API access to build tools to help Twitter users
better interact with the platform.

Twitter’s popularity among users arose from the fact that it was a place where anyone
could comment on world events. And while Twitter enabled millions with access to news
and public information, it also led to incidents of hate speech, bots, spamming and
harassment. In 2015, then-CEO Dick Costolo admitted that Twitter was losing users due
to cyberbullying and promised to develop tools to deal with trolls. 9 Soon after, Twitter
hired content moderators to avoid the proliferation of false information and harmful
content on the platform. The same year, for example, Twitter removed a video of a man
in a skull mask who was threatening to murder Brianna Wu, part of a harassment
campaign called Gamergate. It also permanently suspended right-winger Milo
Yiannopoulos in 2016 and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in 2018. It also flagged
election-related tweets for fact-checking in 2020 and put labels on a tweet from then-
President Trump threatening a crackdown on protests in Minneapolis as against its rules
of “glorifying violence.” 10

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As Twitter stated in its 2021 annual report to shareholders:

We [at Twitter] believe that our long-term success depends on our ability
to improve the health of the public conversation on Twitter. We have made
this one of our top priorities and have focused our efforts on improving the
quality of that conversation, including by devoting substantial internal
resources to our strategy. These efforts include the reduction of abuse,
harassment, spam, manipulation and malicious automation on the
platform, as well as a focus on improving information quality (including
information about elections and the COVID-19 pandemic) and the health
of conversation on Twitter. Some of the health initiatives that we have
implemented as part of our ongoing commitment to a healthy public
conversation have negatively impacted, and may in the future negatively
impact, our publicly reported metrics. 11

THE BIRD THAT DID NOT FLY, FINANCIALLY

Twitter’s content moderation policies were not just the responsible thing to do – they
were also necessary to retain advertisers who did not want their brands promoted
alongside hateful or undesirable content. Advertising was available in a variety of options
in the form of promoted ads, follower ads or a Twitter Takeover.

• Promoted ads were pay-for-performance or pay-for-impression advertising

designed to meet the business’s specific marketing objectives, such as tweet
engagements (e.g. retweets, replies and likes), website traffic, mobile application
installs or engagements, obtaining new followers or video views.

• Follower ads were pay-for-performance advertising that offered advertisers a

means to build an audience for their product or service.

• Twitter Takeover enabled an advertisement to be the first thing to appear when

someone opened the app for the first time on any given day and was sold on a
fixed-fee-per-day basis.

While advertising drove 90% of Twitter’s revenue, other sources of revenue for the
platform were content and marketing partnerships and data licensing. As content
partners, brands could pay to offer live-streaming videos or video clips within content for
people across a number of verticals, including sports, news, gaming and entertainment.
Data licensing offered developers and organizations paid access to Twitter data beyond
what was available for free through their public APIs.

Twitter made various efforts over its history to expand its revenue base. In 2021, Twitter
rolled out a Creator Monetization Program to incentivize creators to invest more time and
money in the platform. The first product, Tips, allowed users to pay creators directly via

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small, one-time payments. A second product, SuperFollows, allowed creators to set and
charge a subscription fee (anywhere from $2.99 to $9.99) to users who were willing to
pay for “behind the scenes” content. Ticketed Spaces was the third product that allowed
creators to charge for access to their live events. However, in the first two weeks,
SuperFollows had only generated $6K. 12

By the end of 2021, Twitter employed 7500 talents in engineering, product, marketing,
sales and other functions to further improve its existing products and services, create
new products and services and cultivate relationships with both customers and
advertisers. Most of Twitter’s employees worked out of the San Francisco headquarters,
although the company had offices all over the world. Twitter’s reach was enabled by its
global sales force, whose objective was to cultivate relationships with the businesses
and brands that helped drive revenue. Individual users connected with Twitter staff
through FAQs on the website, email and through Twitter messages.

Despite efforts to grow Twitter’s revenue through various streams, advertising remained
the primary revenue driver. Twitter shareholders, increasingly frustrated at the lack of
dramatic growth on the platform, removed co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO in November
2021. His successor, Parag Agrawal, led efforts to reorganize Twitter for profitable
growth until he was let go by Musk in November 2022. 13

AND ALONG CAME ELON TO CREATE A SUPER APP

In April 2022, Twitter power user and 9.2% shareholder Elon Musk struck a deal to
purchase Twitter for $44 billion. In a letter to the chair of Twitter’s board, Musk expressed
his desire to make Twitter a “platform for free speech around the globe,” which he
believed required taking the company private. 14 After seeking to terminate the deal, being
sued by and then countersuing Twitter, Musk agreed to pursue the deal, tweeting,
“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” 15 He closed the deal
and became the CEO of Twitter in October 2022.

In buying Twitter, Musk purchased all of the stock and created a new company, X
Holdings, under which he could control the platform. By taking Twitter private, Musk
could change the business model, the product and the company priorities without having
to seek the approval of a board. He was also relieved of the obligation to provide quarterly
reports to shareholders and was subject to less regulatory scrutiny. 16

In addition to taking Twitter private, Musk’s planned changes included reducing Twitter’s
reliance on advertising revenue by adding a subscription model, allowing for longer
tweets, modifying Twitter’s stance on content moderation, making the algorithm open
source and stopping scam and spam bots. 17 He also suggested plans to make money
from content creators, offer more video and enable users to process payments on the
platform. 18

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Musk drew his vision for the transformation of Twitter from Tencent’s WeChat, which
started out as a free mobile messaging service in 2011 and has evolved to become the
hub of all internet activity in China with over 1 billion monthly active users (see Exhibit 1
for WeChat’s value constellation). 19

Launched in 2011, WeChat was designed to be a platform that amalgamated functions

of numerous services like WhatsApp, Facebook and Amazon and it initially flourished as
a mobile messaging tool. It earned mainly from value-added services and advertising.
WeChat’s integral role in daily life in China burgeoned through strategic alliances with
game developers, banks and advertisers. Initially user-centric, WeChat’s partnership
with the Chinese government began with the “official accounts” feature, facilitating
governmental communication with citizens, including visa processing on the platform.

In 2013, mobile gaming was introduced as a revenue source, with WeChat taking a cut
from in-game sales. The same year, WeChat Pay was launched, fostering a collaboration
with over 300 banks and credit card companies like Visa, enabling both online and in-
store purchases. The service, requiring a linked bank card, involved a transaction fee
when transferring money back into bank accounts, encouraging users to retain funds
within WeChat Wallets.

Further, in 2014, WeChat bridged users with third-party service providers for diverse
services like ride-hailing and hotel bookings. By 2015, official accounts could advertise
on the platform, with WeChat charging per 1,000 clicks. WeChat’s success hinged on its
user-focused approach, offering a plethora of services, thereby nurturing a relationship
that transcended mere transactions, demonstrating the significance of prioritizing user
needs.

As of October 2023, WeChat, developed by Tencent, continued to be a major player in

the social media and digital payment sectors, primarily in China, as illustrated by the
following key points:

• User base: WeChat boasted a user base of over 1.2 billion monthly active users
as of 2021. This figure was indicative of its widespread popularity and usage,
especially in China, where it has become deeply integrated into the daily lives of
the populace.

• Revenue: While exact revenue figures for WeChat alone were not publicly
disclosed, Tencent, its parent company, reported a total revenue of ¥560.4 billion
(approx. $87.2 billion) in 2022.

• Daily messages and downloads: In 2023, there were over 38 billion messages
sent daily on WeChat, showcasing its high engagement levels. Moreover, it has
been downloaded over 100 million times on the Google Play Store alone.

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• Diverse functionality: WeChat was more than just a messaging app; it provided
a plethora of services, including payments, social media, shopping and much
more. This multifunctionality made it a “super app” and a crucial part of the digital
lifestyle in China.

• WeChat pay: One of WeChat’s standout features, WeChat Pay, was a significant
digital payment method, facilitating transactions both online and offline.

• Mini programs: Through its Mini Programs, WeChat provided a platform for other
businesses to offer their services within the WeChat ecosystem, further enriching
its value proposition to users.

• Global reach: WeChat had a presence in over 60 markets and offered support for
17 currencies, indicating its ambition and reach beyond the Chinese market.

This data underscores WeChat’s extensive reach, diversified services and integral role
in the digital ecosystem, especially in China.

CHANGES AT TWITTER AT ELON’S SPEED

As soon as Musk gained full control over Twitter, he fired chief executive Parag Agrawal,
chief financial officer Ned Segal, top legal and policy executive Vijaya Gadde, and Sean
Edgett, general counsel.

In one of his first acts as CEO of Twitter, Musk rolled out a new “pay for play” Twitter
Blue verification system in which businesses would have to pay $1,000 per month if they
wanted the gold check mark. Individual subscribers would pay $8 per month for the blue
check, which was a sign of special status on the platform. 20 In the interest of treating
everyone equally, Musk initially decided to also charge a subscription fee to the
celebrities and institutions who already had the free blue check mark. Yet, many
celebrities decided not to pay the fee. Musk subsequently personally “gifted” Twitter Blue
to a number of celebrities, including LeBron James, William Shatner and author Stephen
King. Other high-profile users whose verification status was removed – such as Pope
Francis and President Biden – have since been reinstated, with new marks indicating
them as “a government or multilateral organization account.” 21 Twitter Blue subscribers
gained access to special features such as the ability to edit tweets, were only shown half
of the ads, could upload two-hour videos and write posts up to 10,000 characters. 22

In the nine months between October 2022 and June 2023, Elon Musk single-handedly
took and communicated dozens of far-reaching, often controversial decisions (see
Exhibit 2).

With the declared purpose of protecting free speech, Musk took steps to automate
content moderation and changed content moderation policies. For example, he removed

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the platform’s ban on political ads, reversed its policy against misgendering trans people,
let official Russian accounts reappear in search results and allowed cannabis ads in line
with state laws. 23

Citing the financial losses of the firm, Musk laid off more than 5,500 employees, which
was almost 75% of the workforce he had inherited in October 2022, thus reducing the
workforce to about 2,000 employees by mid-2023. 24 Despite being warned that he could
violate employment laws, Musk proceeded with the layoffs and, as expected, was sued
for hundreds of millions of dollars by employees for severance pay entitlements. 25 On
the other side of the equation, Musk began charging developers for access to the
platform’s API, which was used by thousands of developers to create helpful tools for
users, such as setting reminders or sharing alerts to changes on accounts. 26

Nevertheless, in a corporate filing in May 2023, Fidelity Asset Management, which held
a stake in Twitter worth about $20 million, said its stake in Twitter had lost almost two-
thirds of its value and was now worth just under $6.6 million. 27

INTRODUCING X
In July 2023, Musk renamed Twitter to X. According to Musk, the name change occurred
because the essence of Twitter no longer seemed adequate to represent the magnitude
of the platform’s transformation. He had laid the groundwork at the time of the purchase
by forming a new company, X Corp., under which he made the transaction. He said he
hoped to turn Twitter into an “everything app” called X, which would seamlessly integrate
other functionalities such as communication, ride-hailing services, food delivery as well
as revolutionize the financial landscape. Twitter replaced the logo after Musk requested
for people to post logo submissions, 28 stating, “if a good enough X logo is posted tonight,
we’ll make it go live worldwide tomorrow.” 29

Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s chief executive, tweeted her support for X:

Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to

imagine. X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio,
video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for
ideas, goods, services and opportunities. 30

Why X? Musk is a fan of the letter: X Corp is the name of the company he used to buy
Twitter, the Model X is the name of a Tesla sport utility vehicle and he even named his
son X Æ A-12 Musk (called X for short). 31 And he has a history with X.com. In 1999,
Musk started an online banking company called X.com that merged with Confinity, a
company backed by venture capitalists Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, which had a similar
product known as PayPal. When the companies merged, Musk was fired as CEO by the
board, replaced by Thiel and the company’s name changed to PayPal. 32 Despite his
failure to rebrand PayPal into X.com (see Exhibit 3 for a timeline), Musk never gave up

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his vision to make something big with X.com. In 2017, he thanked PayPal in a tweet for
letting him buy back the X.com domain name. 33

There are several ways to interpret what the brand X could mean. According to Musk,
the X logo is meant “to embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique.” 34 And
while “X” can indicate a positive feature, as in “X marks the spot,” it can also symbolize
what Musk has done at Twitter. Musk has eliminated jobs, rolled back content
moderation, eliminated Twitter culture and alienated advertisers. “X” also has
associations with pornography, which was one of the reasons Musk’s payments
company’s name, X.com, was changed to PayPal in 2001. 35

Most Twitter fans strongly disliked the rebranding, given that the Twitter name, the blue
bird logo and the term “tweets” have been a part of popular culture since 2006. They
expressed their dissatisfaction by disproportionately posting one-star reviews for the
newly renamed X app on the iOS platform since July 24th, the date that the rebrand was
announced. 36

The rebrand was also widely criticized by marketing and branding experts, who
estimated that brand value in the range between $4 billion and $20 billion was destroyed
overnight. 37 For example, branding expert and Stanford professor David Aaker was
critical of the rebrand to X, suggesting that without a clear understanding and value
proposition for the everything app that is X, the rebrand seemed premature. 38 In the
words of Orlando Baeza, chief revenue officer at Flock Freight, “[the brand identity] went
from feeling warm and welcoming to dark and members-only. And to top it off, this all
happened overnight. Literally.” 39

WHAT DID MUSK ACHIEVE WITH TWITTER/X IN HIS

FIRST YEAR?
In his first year as the CEO, Musk made many changes in different domains, such as
monetizing microblogging, a revenue-sharing plan with content creators, as well as
editorial and privacy policies.

Twitter originally launched a Creator Monetization Program in 2021 with the belief that if
creators made money on Twitter, they would invest more time and money in the platform.
The first product, Tips, enabled users to pay creators directly via small one-time
payments. A second product, SuperFollows, allowed creators to set their own
subscription fee (anywhere from $2.99 to $9.99), and users who were willing to pay that
fee had access to “behind the scenes” content. A third product, Ticketed Spaces,
enabled creators to charge for access to their live events. However, in the first two weeks,
SuperFollows had only generated $6,000. 40

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In February 2023, Elon Musk tweeted, “Starting today, Twitter will share ad revenue with
creators for ads that appear in their reply threads,” and then added that creators needed
to be subscribers to Twitter Blue Verified to be eligible. 41 In July 2023, X began sharing
revenue for ads that were displayed in response to the creator’s posts, with the goal to
pay $5 million in the first round of payments. To be eligible, creators needed to be Verified
Twitter Blue subscribers and have at least five million impressions on their posts within
three months with at least 500 followers, and impressions only counted if they were from
other Verified users. 42 It is very important to note that creators did not make money for
posting content (as they would on Instagram and YouTube). They only got paid for
responses to their content, to which X could attach ads.

Whether this would be a viable revenue stream for creators remained to be seen. While
there were many users who received thousands of dollars in earnings, these creators
also had a large number of followers who were premium subscribers to X. For instance,
YouTuber KSI, who posted regularly on X and accumulated millions of views for his
posts, received only $1,500. 43

Musk also posted that X would eliminate the blocking function except for direct
messages, stating that the block feature “makes no sense” and adding that the mute
feature would still be available. The block feature prevented hateful content and
harassment from showing up in a user’s feed as post responses, while the mute function
kept the unwanted responses from showing up in their feed but not from other users’
feeds. This decision could prove to be a challenge to accomplish given that Apple and
Google, the two most popular app distribution providers, both required social networking
apps to include a block feature. 44

X updated its privacy policy to allow it to collect biometric information, employment and
education history. Biometric data would be collected “for safety, security and
identification purposes” while job and education history would be collected to
“recommend potential jobs…enable employers to find potential candidates… and to
show you more relevant advertising.” 45

While these changes supported the notion that Musk wanted to create a better and more
profitable microblogging platform, three announcements indicated that he was putting
action behind his vision to create a super app.

X recently added support for two-hour-long videos, which was used by Apple advertiser
to stream an entire episode of their new show, “Silo.” In addition, X CEO, Linda
Yaccarino, confirmed plans for enabling video chat calls without having to share your
phone number. X also took over the @music handle from its previous owner, which
indicated a possible move into music. 46

By September 2023, X had already obtained money transmitter licenses in four US

states: Arizona, Michigan, Missouri and New Hampshire. 47 This followed an
announcement Musk made in his first Q&A session with Twitter staff in November 2022

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in which he shared his intention to add payment and banking services to the platform in
an attempt to make it “the people’s financial institution.” He also talked about establishing
a high-yield money market account so that the interest on Twitter was higher than you
could earn elsewhere and even the possibility of offering loans. 48

With X, Musk also wanted to become a player in the recruiting market. In May 2023,
Musk purchased Laskie, a job search platform for technology professionals. And on 26
August 2023, X announced a new service: X Hiring, which would allow verified
organizations to post their job opportunities on X for a monthly subscription fee of
$1,000. 49

USERS SEEM TO LOVE THE CHANGES

While many advertisers, users and experts were outspokenly negative about the
platform’s rapid evolution under Musk’s leadership and his polarizing influence, market
research showed significant support. According to research done by E-Poll Market
Research, all customer-related key performance indicators improved between June
2022 and July 2023 (see Exhibit 4). 50 For example, “brand loyalty” increased 13 points
from 49 to 62 in the segment “under 35 years.” This was a relative increase of 27%. In
the segment “over 35 years,” this number increased from 36 to 45 – an increase of 25%.

The recommendation intention among users, measured with the Net Promoter Score
(NPS), also increased. For this measurement, users were asked how likely they would
recommend Twitter to their friends and colleagues on a scale from 1 to 10. A score of 1
indicated “will not recommend at all,” while a score of 10 corresponded to “will definitely
recommend.” Respondents with scores of 9 and 10 were considered “promoters,” a
score of 7 or 8 was neutral, and respondents with scores between 1 and 6 were
considered “detractors.” The NPS was calculated as a difference of “% of promoters - %
of detractors.” Because of this calculation method, the NPS was highly differentiating
and often negative. In the segment “under 35 years,” however, Twitter was able to turn
a NPS of minus 13 into a plus 10. In the older segment, NPS remained negative but
improved from minus 56 to minus 29, an impressive improvement.

Critics argued that the year-to-year comparison was flawed, as the user base between
June 2022 and July 2023 had changed.

ELON MUSK, THE X LEADER, AT ANOTHER

CROSSROADS
While organizational transformations are rarely smooth, under Musk’s leadership, the
company suffered verification chaos, API access shakeups, ban reversals, loss of

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advertisers and staggering layoffs. It also lost more than half its value in a year. Yet Musk
followed through on promises to expand the platform’s service, as described above:

• He lowered costs by firing 75% of the staff.

• He bought X.com and rebranded Twitter.

• He created a subscription for Twitter Blue Verified users.

• He created a new way to monetize Twitter Blue subscriber engagement with

Creator content.

• He changed the editorial and privacy policies.

In the fall of 2023, X enabled subscribers to upload two-hour videos, engage with other
users by video chat, access a job marketplace and was licensed in four US states to
allow payment processing on the app.

Nevertheless, since its acquisition by Elon Musk, X saw a consistent decline in its
monthly US advertisement revenue, with a year-over-year drop of at least 55% each
month, as per data from Guideline, an ad analytics firm.

The platform faced challenges in maintaining its advertiser base amid the rapid changes
implemented by Musk. Ahead of a strategic meeting with bank lenders who financed
Musk’s takeover, CEO Linda Yaccarino was poised to present the company’s business
roadmap.

To address the reported setbacks, Musk cited activist-driven advertiser pressure as a

key factor in the revenue dip, particularly pointing fingers at the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) for an alleged 60% revenue reduction. 51 The ADL refuted these claims,
announcing their readiness to engage in advertising on the platform to promote their anti-
hate message.

In contrast, during a comprehensive interview at Vox Media’s Code conference, 52 Linda

Yaccarino expressed confidence in the platform achieving profitability by early 2024.
Celebrating her 100-day milestone as CEO, Yaccarino addressed the skepticism
regarding her executive independence and the platform’s capacity to re-attract
advertisers.

Yaccarino underscored the unique rapidity and breadth of transformation at X, despite

the platform slipping in active user rankings, now below even Samsung’s clock
application. She remained optimistic, citing internal indicators of user engagement
showing promising trends, though without divulging details.

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In a positive turn, Yaccarino noted the return of approximately 1,500 advertisers within
three months, with 90% of the platform’s principal advertisers resuming their
campaigns. 53

In 2023, Elon Musk became the person with the highest number of followers on X (141
million), ahead of President Barack Obama (133 million) and Justin Bieber (113 million)
(see Exhibit 5). His fans and supporters often compared him to Steve Jobs because
they are both considered visionary leaders, and their names are synonymous with two
of the most admired and valuable companies they created, Tesla and Apple,
respectively. As visionary leaders, they shared a desire to change the world through their
companies and inspired their organizations to follow them. Apple co-founder Steve
Wozniak commented on the similarity: “I put them in the category of having the ability to
communicate and want to be seen as the important person and being like the cult
leader.” 54 In managing their companies, their adherence to their respective visions
revealed itself in micromanagement and harsh criticism of employees. Steve Jobs was
fixated on product and design details and well-known for harshly criticizing employees
whose efforts or results did not meet his standards. Musk’s leadership style was also
described as “brutal,” putting the product above everything else. 55

While Steve Jobs created Apple, with a market capitalization of $2.72 trillion, the most
valuable company in the world, 56 and Elon Musk is considered the richest man on the
planet, valued at $217 billion, 57 critics argue that Musk’s achievements and genius do
not mean that X will ever be successful. The business models of Apple and X are
fundamentally different. While Jobs and Musk were very demanding to their respective
staff, it seems that Jobs understood the importance of creating organizations that last
and ultimately can be led by somebody else. The question remains if Musk wants to lead
X for commercial reasons or to influence society and public discourse.

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14
Exhibit 1: WeChat’s value constellation

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Exhibit 2: Musk’s decisions made at Twitter, October 2022 – June 2023

Oct 2022 Musk completes takeover in October in a deal valued at $44 billion and makes Twitter a private company, firing chief
executive Parag Agrawal and chief financial officer Ned Segal, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top legal and policy executive,
and Sean Edgett, general counsel.

Nov 2022 Twitter rolls out a new verification system available by subscription for $8/month. In the next two days, the site is
flooded with users who have bought blue checkmarks only to turn around and impersonate official accounts, including
Musk’s. As impersonators continue to spread, Musk decides to suspend the rollout of the new Twitter Blue program.

Nov 2022 Musk lays off 3700 people, resulting in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in
San Francisco, alleging the company violated federal and state laws that require 60 days’ notice of mass layoffs,
according to a court document.

Nov 2022 Musk fires one engineer, then terminates as many as 20 others, including ones who criticized him on internal
channels.

Nov 2022 Musk sends a companywide email to employees about working “long hours at high intensity” or receiving “three
months of severance” if they do not consent to these conditions or support his vision for “Twitter 2.0.”

Dec 2022 Twitter lays off half of its public policy team, disperses trust and safety council.

Dec 2022 Twitter allows Twitter Blue subscribers to upload 60-minute videos, introduces stock and crypto prices in app, shuts
down newsletter platform.

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Jan 2023 Twitter reverses existing policy and decides to allow political ads to run on the site.

Jan 2023 Twitter bans third-party clients.

Feb 2023 Twitter ends free access to Twitter API, so developers need to a pay a monthly subscription fee ranging from
$100/month for hobbyists to tiered pricing for enterprise use.

Feb 2023 Twitter expands to Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, India, Indonesia and Brazil.

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Feb 2023 Musk announces that Twitter will start sharing ad revenue with creators.

April 2023 Twitter removes a policy that prohibited the targeted deadnaming or misgendering of transgender people.

April 2023 Twitter resurfaces accounts of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Embassy.

April 2023 Twitter will not allow retweets or replies to Substack links.

April 2023 Twitter partners with eToro to allow users to trade stocks.

April 2023 Twitter tells advertisers that they must subscribe to Twitter Blue or they can’t run ads, resulting in Microsoft dropping
Twitter from its ad platform.

May 2023 Musk hires new CEO for Twitter, Linda Yaccarino.

May 2023 Twitter acquires Laskie, a job recruiting platform.

June 2023 Twitter fails to strike a licensing deal for copyrighted music used on platform and faces $250 million lawsuit by major
music publishers.

June 2023 Twitter is evicted from its office in Boulder, CO.

June 2023 Twitter limits the number of posts verified and unverified users can access to 6,000 and 600 and then extends it to
10,000 and 1,000.

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Source: Compiled by the authors from TechCrunch, NBC News, Business Insider and Axios.

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HAS ELON MUSK X’D OUT?

Exhibit 3: The history of X.com

1999 Elon Musk bought X.com in 1999.

2000 X.com merges with Confinity and becomes PayPal.

Spring 2000 X.com was briefly rebranded as “X-Finance” and then “X-PayPal.”

Late 2007 X.com was resurrected as PayPal Labs.

2009 X.com blog was founded and disappeared after only two posts.

Spring 2010 X.com was replaced with PayPal-X Developer Network.

2011–2014 X.com was replaced by a new joint venture of eBay (which had acquired PayPal in 2002),
PayPal, and Magento called “X-commerce.”

February 2014 eBay seems to have given up on the X.commerce venture, and X.com is redirected to
eBay’s corporate site (ebayinc.com).

July 2017 Elon Musk repurchased X.com and replaced the homepage with just the letter “X.”

2018 X.com led to a page that was under construction.

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July 2023 Twitter.com redirected to X.

Source: Compiled by the authors from the Wayback Archive, TechCrunch and Moz.

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HAS ELON MUSK X’D OUT?

Exhibit 4: Key performance indicators based on Twitter user analytics in July 2023

Under 35 years Over 35 years

June 2022 July 2023 Difference June 2023 July 2023 Difference

Awareness 52 59 +7 60 65 +5

Positive buzz (past month) 31 36 +5 12 15 +3

Ad recall (past month) 38 45 +7 14 19 +5

Fan of Twitter 27 30 +3 9 15 +6

Brand loyalty among users 49 62 +13 36 45 +9

NPS promoters 31 42 11 23

NPS detractors 44 32 67 52

Net promoter score (NPS) -13 10 +23 -56 -29 +27

Source: E-Poll Market Research Blog. (2023, July 23). What is Twitter’s (now X) influence on public opinion today? https://blog.epollresearch.com/2023/07/24/what-

customerservice@harvardbusiness.org or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.

is-twitters-now-x-influence-on-public-opinion-today/

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19
Exhibit 5: X (formerly Twitter) accounts with the most followers worldwide as of August 2023

Source: Statista, 2023

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