While it is unclear whether billionaire Elon Musk can change the world after acquiring Twitter, but in the immediate future, this deal is pushing the company’s business to the most dangerous edge ever when Twitter both failed to retain employees and lost advertisers.
Twitter itself admitted this in a new filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission recently. This threat comes not only from employees leaving but also from the difficulty of effectively recruiting new staff due to the impact of Mr. Musk’s acquisition of the company. Twitter emphasized that even the employees who stayedcould be distracted and reduce productivity due to the uncertainty of this merger“.
Mr. Musk himself is not very worried about that, telling Reuters that: “This is a free country… Surely if anyone feels uncomfortable about it, they will leave on their own. Fine.”
But the biggest threat to Twitter right now comes from advertisers – the social media company’s main revenue stream – who are concerned about the changes Mr. Musk is promising to make. when taking over the social network Twitter.
While talking about his vision, Musk often emphasizes turning Twitter into a platform geared toward free speech without assuring advertisers of “brand safety” from the threat posed by hackers. misinformation, fake news, hateful posts… when content moderation is overlooked.
Currently, Twitter is already censoring and banning many types of content – even if it is not illegal – but if Mr. Musk comes to power, this policy could be softened and focused only on content that is censored. The US government considers it illegal. This can also increase the amount of divisive and hostile content that advertisers don’t like when it can appear alongside their brands.
Meanwhile, automakers are especially concerned about this deal when Mr. Musk, who also runs electric car maker Tesla, is able to gain deeper access and better understand the program. their marketing on Twitter.
Mr. Elon Musk has publicly talked about giving up advertising on Twitter.
Not only does it not help Twitter improve its relationship with advertisers, Musk is also suggesting many ideas to help Twitter reduce its reliance on ads to make money. Regrettably, none of those solutions promise to stabilize the company’s finances in an instant as a flood of advertisers is leaving.
Twitter executives themselves have no specific solutions to these problems. During their annual meeting with advertisers during the IAB NewFronts event on May 4, Twitter executives were just trying to reassure advertisers that business was still going on for them. company, but did not mention what specific changes will take place when Mr. Musk takes over the company.
Sarah Personette, Twitter’s chief customer officer, also said generally that the company is committed to developing new products and serving advertisers, who generate the majority of their revenue. As for the changes Musk is proposing to make on Twitter in the near future, they are barely mentioned in the Twitter meeting with advertisers.
Compared to other giant social networking platforms like Facebook, TikTok or YouTube with billions of users, Twitter has a much smaller user base when it currently has just over 200 million daily users.
This may lead advertisers to believe that their benefits are not commensurate with the potential uncertainties when Mr. Musk’s acquisition is underway. Without concrete measures to improve the situation soon, it is likely that employee bleeding and revenue will soon push Twitter to the real brink.
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