Elon Musk’s Influence Was Misjudged
Musk is taking advantage of the generational shift in how we consume news to put his thumb on the news scale to suit his own (political) interests.
The past few years have been a whirlwind in social media land. Our experiences online pre-pandemic feel like a generation ago. The rise of short-form video has not only transformed the social media giants (Instagram, YouTube), but also pushed video on what had been text-first platforms. Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase in 2022, which many predicted to not pan out, continues to be misjudged based on its subsequent influence. It is not an understatement to say X was the pivotal factor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The defining driver behind this development: Elon Musk.
One reason why Tesla is such a difficult company to analyze is that one ends up needing to analyze Elon Musk. It’s not an easy task. While I am keenly aware of the key man / woman risk being overstated, there is no denying that Musk is single-handily determining Tesla’s key strategic decisions and direction. As it pertains to X, formerly Twitter, a similarly overpowering presence by Musk is apparent. Partly out of necessity as large advertisers moved away from the platform, X embraced paid subscriptions. The company also dropped what had been Twitter’s highly controversial content moderation policies that followed partisan lines. As someone who used Twitter during the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections, the most recent campaign felt and looked different on X. Not only was President Trump’s account reinstated, but a wide selection of accounts that had been banned in the years leading up to Musk’s takeover were reinstated and active. From my vantage point, both sides of the political aisle were adequately represented on X, which was not the case pre-Musk, although the claim is somewhat subjective given the X algorithm.
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Something Has Changed With the Tesla Community
The most interesting takeaways and observations from Tesla’s “We, Robot” event weren’t from the event itself, but rather from what unfolded after the event.
Last week, Tesla held its highly anticipated robotaxi event. From an analytical perspective, there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. The event was geared more toward building aspirations and dreams than unveiling concrete product strategy.
The most interesting takeaways and observations weren’t from the event itself, but rather from what unfolded after the event.
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2023 Was a Year of Characters
As we wrap up another year, we look back at what comes across as an eventful 2023. Macro issues and lingering COVID talk led to a shaky start. We then saw a fair share of winners (“Barbie” / NVIDIA / OpenAI) and losers (Disney / consumer gadget sales / EVs). While most people would position “AI” as the tech story of the year, there’s something about that decision that doesn’t sit right with me. While AI buzz was certainly alive and well, the actual impact on consumers was less clear. Instead, 2023 came across as the year headlined by characters – Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bob Iger, Jensen Huang, Satya Nadella, and Sam Altman. With each, a narrative took hold that came together to give the year a fast-paced news flow.
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The Good and Bad of X
More than a year into Elon Musk’s Twitter ownership, it’s safe to say it’s been an eventful journey. Last month, Musk generated another wave of controversy at an NYT conference by publicly going after former Twitter / X advertisers for pulling away from the platform. The saga brought a renewed look at what X is becoming. Enough time has passed with Musk at the helm that we are able to point out genuine improvements and problems found with X.
We will begin with the genuinely positive developments. We will then follow that with the bad and the mixed bag.
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Musk’s “Unregretted User Minutes” Makes Sense
It’s been six months since Elon Musk took over Twitter. Given seemingly daily crises and shocking revelations, it feels much longer than six months. One thing is for sure: Musk is shaping Twitter to his liking. The number of Twitter employees has been reduced by a whopping 90%. The blue check mark era ended abruptly. A war on tweets with outward links has been waged.
Along with those user-facing changes, Musk has begun pushing a new metric for Twitter: “Unregretted user minutes.” Your initial interpretation of the phrase will probably be accurate.
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Elon Musk Isn’t Twitter’s Problem
Elon Musk continues to make unforced errors as he molds Twitter into his liking. Unnecessary controversies and illogical strategy moves are not only increasing stress and anxiety among some Twitter users, but also clouding what Musk has done correctly. Yes, there actually have been a few positive changes such as the “What’s happening” editorial trends coming to an end.
In finding the top tech story in 2022, the Musk/Twitter saga makes the short list.
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Elon’s Twitter
If there were still questions as to how Elon Musk was going to run Twitter, his tweeting a video of himself walking into an empty Twitter HQ carrying a bathroom sink to denote the change of ownership told us that this was going to be an unconventional transition. We were about to see the Musk show, and the first 12 days have certainly lived up to that description.
Unfortunately, much of the analysis focused on Twitter and Musk has left much to be desired. It has been both superficial and biased. Many have allowed their personal views of Musk to get in the way of critical analysis.
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The Musk Ride Continues for Twitter
Twitter is on a roller coaster named Elon Musk. There hasn’t been a shortage of surprise dips and turns. The initial courtship and even befriending that took place between Twitter leadership and Musk now seems like a distant memory. It’s hard to believe Twitter had initially tried to offer Musk a board seat in order to curb his Twitter stock purchases. Passive aggressiveness then set in once Musk’s intentions became known. This quickly turned into support once acquisition funding had been lined up. A few months later, we now see Twitter being put in the awkward position of suing Musk to force him to see his acquisition through as he sows doubt about the accuracy of Twitter’s financial disclosures.
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Elon Musk Buys Twitter
It’s been quite the April for Elon Musk. Within just three weeks, Musk went from disclosing that he had spent months quietly amassing a 9% stake in Twitter, to accepting and then turning down a Twitter board seat, to finally having Twitter’s board accept his hostile takeover bid for $44 billion.
Musk buying Twitter is a big deal for a few reasons:
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The Electric Car’s Moment Is Delayed (Again)
While much of Silicon Valley remains infatuated with crypto, NFTs, and the metaverse, Wall Street has been lusting over electric vehicles (EVs). In an industry that has experienced a major sales contraction due to supply issues, EV growth of nearly 90% in 2021 has been positioned as nirvana. Legacy auto makers look at EV as an answer to finding relevancy while EV startups are finding it easier than ever to raise new capital. However, not all is bright in EV land.
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Tech’s Complicated Race to Space
For at least an hour or so last week, cable news channels were bearable to watch. Instead of pushing political agendas and playing in COVID fear mongering, attention was given to Jeff Bezos flying into “space” on board his Blue Origin rocket. Some U.S. news networks even sent anchors to Texas to cover the event. The ordeal offered a brief sense of levity to what has become a downright toxic news environment.
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Elon Musk and a New Era of Tech Celebrity
Elon Musk continued his streak of being unlike any other CEO by guest hosting Saturday Night Live this past weekend. For those who have followed Musk over the years, including his Twitter activity, the show went pretty much as one would expect.
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New Age Financial Bubbles Are Forming
Last week, there were a number of events that caught my attention.
Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency which contains no value and is literally based on a meme, saw its price rise by 400%.
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, had its initial public offering and at one point during its first day of trading reached a $100 billion valuation. The company, which most people never heard of prior to last week, reached a market cap milestone that Uber, one of the most talked about companies of the 2010s, was unable to reach until just a few months ago. Only one of those companies has a valuation directly tied to crypto’s surge in price.
There is a publicly-traded deli in NJ apparently worth approximately $100M. It says something that my initial thought was that the NJ deli’s stock price (HWIN) was probably higher, not lower, following public awareness. I wasn’t too far off.
Coinbase, Dogecoin, and the $100 million NJ deli share something in common.
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