Elon Doesn’t Know Jack About Twitter

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When Elon Musk (finally) took over Twitter last month, it followed 12 months of former CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey saying it would be a fantastic idea. A month after the deal was finalized, Jack might’ve reconsidered this view.?

“I don’t know what the relationship is today is like with Jack and Elon,” social media consultant and industry analyst Matt Navarra tells Newsweek. “I find it hard [to understand how] he can reconcile his feelings that he said in the last year that he’s [Elon’s] the savior and the only solution he trusts for Twitter and then seeing the manner in which Musk’s come in and trodden on all the things that were there building the business up.”

With Dorsey remaining one of the few Twitter shareholders (he rolled over his shares to maintain a 2.4% stake); his new Bluesky platform launching “soon” that *could* compete directly with Twitter; and his view of Twitter as a fundamental building block of the internet and a “service” rather than “an app,” what gives? Who blinks first? And is this “tension” just an invention by media onlookers like me??

Has The Dust Settled Yet??

Musk’s shocks have come thick and fast at Twitter. The shortest version is: half the company’s staff has gone along with the leadership team. He’s entirely changed the business model, then changed the business model again, then angered advertisers, then courted advertisers, and brought back Trump and the artist formerly known as Kanye West (Ye) to the platform. It’s been a lot. And, he’s not done yet.

“There’s still more to come,” Navarra says. “The major shock or cultural reset or whatever you want to call it, most of that has been done, but he thrives from creating that level of shock and polarization of users of Twitter and the media. Similar to Trump, he’ll try to generate free PR and media coverage through the use of his Twitter account. The dust has not settled at all yet.”

These changes are not what Dorsey envisaged for Twitter in recent years. He sees Twitter as email or text messaging, a service, a building block of the internet rather than a branded product.

“No one can own it,” Jack Broderick wrote in Garbage Day. “No one single company can control it. And we would use it via various clients and apps… So how does anything that’s happening to Twitter right now in any way bring it closer to that?”?

This is where Bluesky comes in. It was established in 2019 as a part of Twitter but was spun off as its own independent company in 2021, despite still receiving funding from Twitter (though if that continues with Musk is still unknown). Its own documentation calls it an “open and decentralized” social networking system, using one profile across many social apps. This means users can build networks, join groups of platforms with the same common protocols and see what the algorithms are doing transparently. Think of it like a web browser for social media, where anyone can build their own social network, audiences, and algorithms.?

If Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is betting on the metaverse, Dorsey’s big bet is decentralization or Web3. It’s a reaction away from big business, monopoly powers, and wanting to put the power back in the hands of users. Dorsey even goes as far as to reassess what Twitter was.

"It [Twitter] should have never been a company," Dorsey texted Musk in texts revealed in a recent court case. "That was the original sin." It’s no coincidence that this feels close to what cryptocurrency evangelists are trying to do, with crypto developer Jay Graber hired by Dorsey to be Bluesky's CEO.?

And this is where it gets (even more) confusing - Musk’s big bet is also Web3 (you know, alongside self-driving cars, space travel, and the “everything app”). He broadly agrees with the decentralized principles and could use Bluesky to change Twitter’s direction in partnership with Dorsey. The difficulty is whether that is profitable for someone so focused on money.?

A ‘Battle for the Future of Civilization’

Twitter will experiment heavily with Web3 and crypto-related projects under Musk, irrespective of whether Bluesky ends up playing a starring role, Rabble Evan Henshaw-Plath , a peer-to-peer social network founder and Odeo’s (which made Twitter) first employee, told Wired. “I’m not sure that’s good,” he said, “but it’s definitely where most of the big changes will be.”

The big change with Bluesky is that it’s now in private beta, with a long waiting list of users to test it out. The difference is that Dorsey wants his work to have “public benefit” while Musk says his work is a “battle for the future of civilization” and, like it or not, Musk is still motivated by money. This is a difficult balance, but Henshaw-Plath even goes as far as to believe that Dorsey might return to Twitter in some capacity. Not everyone thinks that’ll be the case.

“Jack’s days at Twitter are done,” Navarra says. “In the next few months, Twitter will become a different beast, so I think any play he has will be through Bluesky. I don’t see another outing for Jack at Twitter. I don’t think Elon would allow for it, and that relationship wouldn’t bear the strain given the differences they have at this time.”?

One of the most famous tweets on Twitter is a spam one from 10 years ago that goes viral every so often: “Everything happens so much,” @Horse_ebooks published in 2012. That tweet resonates now perhaps more than ever. But whether that “everything” happens with Dorsey and Musk working together or as adversaries, not even @Horse_ebooks would know.?

Twitter and Bluesky have been approached by Infinite Scroll for comment.?

The questions we still don’t have answers to after researching this article: (all musings/questions/opinions welcome to [email protected] if you think you know the answers)?

1. How much do Dorsey and Musk communicate? We got a glimpse into the two tech giants’ previous communications with the court filings, but we don’t know just how much of a sounding board the former CEO is to the new owner, if at all. With few people from “old Twitter” still at the company, little information is being released?
2. We all know Elon Musk is playing a game, but who’s winning? If we take the assumption that Musk as the richest man in the world knows, at least to some extent, that everything he tweets has an impact, what game is he playing? And who is coming out on top? Even people who speak to Elon have told us that they’re not sure what the endgame is. If he wants to “move fast and break things” then he’s succeeded, but he’s not used to having to deal with advertisers, with such a large customer base or a social network. Musk has warned that Twitter could go bust which also means Bluesky would automatically lose its funding. Who wins then? ?
3. This article doesn’t focus on Jack Dorsey’s financial motivations. Is that because there aren’t any? Dorsey presents as a web evangelist who wants to disrupt the web and make it a more democratic place, irrespective of financial return. But his wealth has jumped from around $1.1 billion in 2016 to around $15 billion in 2021, according to Forbes. This wealth is mainly from his payments platform, Square. Is he rich enough not to care about the ~$1 billion he still has invested in Twitter? What’s the business model of Bluesky or is that not the point? Can a Silicon Valley venture capitalist really divorce themselves from profit??
4. How much are Bitcoin and blockchain elephants in the room? Dorsey is loudly a Bitcoin and blockchain advocate, without believing in other “fad” cryptocurrencies. But Bluesky has not been built on blockchain (it’s complicated, but there’s an explainer here) with Graber calling Bluesky “blockchain optional and blockchain agnostic.” How blockchain integrates with the future of the web is something Infinite Scroll will be focused on in the future but how social media, cryptocurrency, and blockchain in general integrate - if and when they do - might be a headache for Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs but is seen as an opportunity for Dorsey.?