We found the boss sleeping on the floor: what is Musk doing to Twitter? - Walla! technology

Elon Musk vs Twitter (Photo: Reuters)

In a profile they did at the time on WIRED about Elon Musk, there was the following story: When Tesla was dealing with severe problems in the production of its cars, which prevented it from getting the cars to customers and almost led to its collapse, Musk found one of the engineers trying to solve a mechanical problem in one of the cars.

When he didn't like the engineer's answers about what he was doing, Musk simply told the man inside: "You're fired," pushed him aside and started working on the problem himself.

One of the top executives at Tesla, one of the only ones who had the courage to warn the tough boss about his brutal management style, told him following this and other events: "Elon, people can't be creative when they're being chased by a tiger."

So now, the tiger has come to Twitter.

Since he completed the purchase deal of the social network last week for $44 billion, Musk has been making revolutions there, literally - and has made the employees anxious.

For example, this morning (Friday) widespread layoffs began there, after Musk announced that half of the workforce at Twitter would be fired, and he demanded that the other half return to work from the office (the intention in the statement was to make people leave voluntarily).

Some of the employees have already been seen leaving the offices with boxes in their hands, while Musk mocks some of them - on Twitter.

The bird was released - but what about the company's employees?

Musk didn't waste anything and immediately got down to business - on the night of the purchase, right after he tweeted "the bird has been released" (referring to Twitter's symbol, the blue bird).

He fired CEO Parag Agarwal, along with a number of other company executives, and made himself CEO.

Musk (who at the same time runs several other companies that he owns such as SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring company) dug into the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco with a collection of some of his loyal people in a segregated area, which is now secured with new guards at the entrance, who were not there before.

Musk probably realizes that he won't exactly be a popular manager with his employees.

A few dozen people from the social circle, the personal office and a number of employees from his other companies have now been added to the list of those authorized to enter Twitter:

Among other things, to the list of employees were added Alex Shapiro, Musk's personal lawyer, who now functions as the company's legal advisor in practice, Andrew Mark, a relative of Musk's who works at Neurolink, which he owns, and Jen Belhadia - the operations manager of The Boring Company (Musk's company that works about hyperloop tunnels and underground transportation solutions), and some of his friends, such as David Sachs, originally part of the "Paypal gang" (Musk's first company that launched him) and now an influential political contributor, and Siriram Krishnan, a former product lead at Twitter, who now works at another company .

Kevin Baikpour, Twitter's former VP of Product who was fired by the previous CEO, was also seen at the company's offices.

Musk did not spare his pressure on his new employees, after taking complete control of the company.

He announced (via tweets of course) a series of changes to Twitter that we will immediately deal with, and informed the software engineers that if they do not make the changes within a week - they will be fired.

Musk himself, by the way, appeared almost immediately at the company's offices - and entered carrying with him...a sink (a silly play on words about sinking in, that is, diving into Twitter - when sink is also a sink).

Musk informed the software engineers that if they do not make the changes within a week - they will be fired (Photo: ShutterStock)

And the pressure took its toll: one of Twitter's employees, Evan Jones, product manager of Spaces, the company's collaborative audio broadcasting product, tweeted a photo of Esther Crawford, Twitter's general product manager and Jones' boss, sleeping on the floor of the company's offices with the caption "When you need something from your boss on Elon's Twitter."

Crawford retweeted the photo and added: "When your team is working around the clock to stand on the boards sometimes you #sleep_where_you_work."

Lessons in freedom of expression

Musk is not satisfied with organizational changes and work culture.

His intention is to also change the face of Twitter, which has not had the dizzying success of the first generation social networks to which it belongs.

At a time when YouTube, which was established a year before Twitter, and Facebook, which was established two years before it, are earning tens of billions of dollars - Twitter is making losses, and remains a relatively small network next to its two competitors that have become monsters.

Musk, who some claim has no idea what kind of quagmire he's walking into with this purchase, wants to change all that.

He wants to make Twitter a network that the masses trust and give users complete freedom of expression.

The man has often complained about Twitter's censorship policy, which among other things led to the complete expulsion of former President Donald Trump from the platform, and claimed that it could be done better.

In the days surrounding the purchase of the company, Musk began to bombard ideas: he is considering bringing back Vine, Twitter's short video project that failed and asked Twitter users if it was a good idea, plans to sell the verified (the "blue V") for $8 a month to anyone He wanted to do so and mocked the current "privileged" system that only gives Blue V to known people (full disclosure - the writer of these lines owns Blue V on Twitter, and is not sure if he wants to pay Musk...) and announced the establishment of a content control board for Twitter.

The last announcement is the most significant.

As mentioned, Musk has a long history with the issue called freedom of expression on Twitter, and he is known to hold extreme views on the issue that talk about unlimited freedom of expression.

Musk has not announced who will be appointed to that board, but Twitter has announced that there will be no significant changes to the company's content management policies until the board meets.

Musk has a long history with the issue called freedom of expression on Twitter, and is known to hold extreme views (Photo: Reuters)

However, since Musk took over Twitter, trolls have been trying to challenge the new owner: since the purchase, Twitter has been bombarded with misogynistic and racist comments, such as a 500 percent jump in just 12 hours, in the use of the word "nigger" which is so politically incorrect that in the United States it is called The same The N-Word so as not to repeat it, next to an account whose profile picture is a swastika that retweeted Musk's tweets while accompanying them with anti-Semitic cartoons.

The new owner of Twitter's views on freedom of speech and its limits and the resulting flurry have also caused advertisers and celebrities to stop their horses and express concerns about the future.

Basketball player LeBron James, who responded to the attack of hate speech on Twitter, urged Musk not to ignore it - "I don't know Elon Musk, and to be honest, I don't care who owns Twitter, but I will say that if it's true (the reports on Increase in hate speech against blacks - N.L.), I hope he and his people take the matter seriously, because it's scary. So many unworthy people say that hate speech is freedom of speech," tweeted the famous basketball player.

And LeBron James is not alone, advertisers also halted horses: General Motors announced that it is temporarily suspending advertising on Twitter, until the company's policy under the new owner becomes clear.

By the way, this made Musk panic (because one of the main goals is to improve Twitter's cash flow, not hurt it...) and he hurried to tweet a letter to advertisers, in which he flattens his world view on the matter, assuring them that Twitter will not turn into "hell" or "Freedom for everything".

But as Musk may find out in the near future and get a painful lesson in the limits of power, Twitter is no Tesla.

The problems that accompany a social network are mainly political and not engineering.

Unlike his other companies where he launches cars, rockets into space, or space cars tethered to rockets - Twitter has other kinds of problems, not the kind that he can just push aside an engineer and fix them himself.

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