I have a theory about Twitter's often odd actions since Musk took over, although I fear HN won't like it because it may tend to paint Musk in a reasonable light:
I think that we are seeing the symptoms of a team (Twitter) who is not yet used to Musk's management style, whereby he says something like, "we should do X", and he means, "we should investigate and take reasonable actions which have the same effect as (the too-bold action) X". The team interprets the first statement too literally and actually does X, which isn't really what Musk intended. I developed this theory in the roll-out of Twitter Blue, because it matches what happened very closely: Musk publicly said "hey we're going to start charging for verification and it's no longer a mark of validated identity". The team jumped and made something overnight, but this was rolled back because it's not what Musk meant for them to do. Rather, what he meant for them to do was sit down, plan what to do, and then execute it - quickly, but not immediately. And that's what happened in the end, i.e. in the past few days.
This effect is exacerbated by the remaining employees at Twitter including those who are most eager to suck up to the new boss, frankly, leading to them jumping and doing what he said (over-literally).
Anyways, the same theory would explain the elonjet thing. Elon says, "hey posting people's real-time location is generally seen as a bad thing, like that elonjet guy, we should look into a policy against that." Overeager underling takes this as a commandment to ban elonjet. More reasonable people who are beginning to catch on to the management style go and actually develop the policy; once it's developed, it makes sense to just Ctrl-Z the actions of the overeager group.
I think the team is afraid to stand up to Musk, and this makes things worse... but I think you're crafting an explanation where Musk isn't in the loop and pressing for things to happen immediately. This isn't consistent with Musk's public comments and tweets during the Blue rollout. E.g. he talks of having personally killed the gray checkmark, and that "Blue check will be the great leveler."
He even says at the time:
> Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.
> More reasonable people who are beginning to catch on to the management style go and actually develop the policy; once it's developed, it makes sense to just Ctrl-Z the actions of the overeager group.
and now elonjet is back to being banned, so this doesn't really make sense.
Any management style that results in your direct reports doing things wrong isn't their fault. It's the manager who didn't communicate clearly, didn't correctly incentivize, didn't set the right example, didn't create pathways to desired outcomes, etc.
On what do you base this claim? What is one example in the last 3 years where you think Musk's intention was to "investigate and take reasonable actions"?
Did Elon decide to investigate and take reasonable action when signing an agreement to buy Twitter? Did he do so when trying to weasel his way out of the deal?
Did he investigate and take reasonable action when making bids about hyperloop and tunnels that were stupidly low to block public transit efforts but then never came to fruition?
As reported by insiders from other Musk companies, the issue is actually that Musk means everything he says, concerns himself with minutiae, and constantly demands insane and counterproductive things. These other companies have built up a layer of managers who are dedicated to lying to Musk and coaching their teams on lying to Musk while allowing actual useful things to get done instead of the things Musk would prefer. Twitter's current situation is what happens when a company lacks this protective inner layer.
That might be a factor (and I've entertained this idea myself!) but Elon is also shown to be impulsive and tyrannical enough in his public words (and leaked communications) that I don't think this explanation is actually needed.
>>I have a theory about Twitter's often odd actions since Musk took over, although I fear HN won't like it because it may tend to paint Musk in a reasonable light:
Reminds me of the "The Bear is Sticky with Honey" situation
when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
musk isnt some gratioud thoughtful genius surrounded by incompetence. he’s a malicious, selfish, narcissist.
and if you dont see that, well, nothing can be done about it. just look at his tweets and “enlightened centrism”. and that time he called a guy a pædo.
> ded. I developed this theory in the roll-out of Twitter Blue
My theory around this is that this was a test to see which developers are willing to do what he says on a short timeline and are able to have the required impact across the stack.
I think that we are seeing the symptoms of a team (Twitter) who is not yet used to Musk's management style, whereby he says something like, "we should do X", and he means, "we should investigate and take reasonable actions which have the same effect as (the too-bold action) X". The team interprets the first statement too literally and actually does X, which isn't really what Musk intended. I developed this theory in the roll-out of Twitter Blue, because it matches what happened very closely: Musk publicly said "hey we're going to start charging for verification and it's no longer a mark of validated identity". The team jumped and made something overnight, but this was rolled back because it's not what Musk meant for them to do. Rather, what he meant for them to do was sit down, plan what to do, and then execute it - quickly, but not immediately. And that's what happened in the end, i.e. in the past few days.
This effect is exacerbated by the remaining employees at Twitter including those who are most eager to suck up to the new boss, frankly, leading to them jumping and doing what he said (over-literally).
Anyways, the same theory would explain the elonjet thing. Elon says, "hey posting people's real-time location is generally seen as a bad thing, like that elonjet guy, we should look into a policy against that." Overeager underling takes this as a commandment to ban elonjet. More reasonable people who are beginning to catch on to the management style go and actually develop the policy; once it's developed, it makes sense to just Ctrl-Z the actions of the overeager group.