re: Elon Squid Game: New email to the engineering team - Show up on 10th floor at 2:00pm today

quote:

---

I'm not sure Musk even knows what his endgame is at this point.

---

With regards to the current chaos, consider that a strong CEO with a good team and delegation skills can get his team aligned to his vision to the point that the company acts like a well-oiled machine even when he steps away (much like the Brian Kelly "alignment" jokes on the Rant). In contrast, Elon has stepped into a company that is way out of alignment with his values and vision, with many of the employees openly hating him.

I, among others, believe it was not a coincidence that Musk made his initial offer to buy Twitter shortly after Twitter banned the Babylon Bee. (Musk had done an interview with the Bee maybe a couple months before that, and upon the Bee beeing banned, I think he tweeted something to the effect that something has to be done about that [the unfairness of it] or about free speech.)

His endgame, as I see it, has a few objectives:
1) Cut costs. Twitter is losing money and arguably has too many employees for what they do (many of whom hate Musk or are otherwise not aligned to his vision).

2) Free speech angle. I think (without proof) that Musk is rather anti-PC and would genuinely like to see open discourse. And though he's not a conservative, he seems to disapprove of silencing conservative voices.

3) He has spoken of wanting to make a super-app of sorts (can't remember, but think Chinese WeChat is the model he referred to) that is not only a social media platform, but includes a payment system and other features. Once he tears down the current culture, I would expect him to build back lean towards this goal with an eye on trying to turn a profit.