Well, it looks like it’s finally happening. Professional megalomaniac Elon Musk is at Twitter HQ this week, talking to staff and posting cringey videos, giving the impression he’s aiming to meet his 5:00 pm Friday deadline to complete his $44 billion purchase of the social media platform.
Musk, who desperately wants to be perceived as funny, posted that video of himself carrying a sink into the building Wednesday with the caption “let that sink in.”
“Kitchen sinking” is also a business term for either taking radical action or for releasing all bad news at once, the latter being basically the opposite of what Musk is doing, as he continues to flip-flop on major components of this deal. A few days ago, it was revealed that he told prospective investors that he planned to lay off about 75% of Twitter’s workforce—a move that would be undoubtedly catastrophic for the platform. But when Musk met with staff Thursday, he reportedly told them he wouldn’t be doing that. Layoffs are still expected, though, but I guess employees are just going to have to live with their very un-kitchen-sinkish uncertainty for a while longer.
Musk also tweeted a lengthy message to “Twitter advertisers” Thursday morning. Musk has stated in the past that he “hate[s] advertising,” but he appears to have realized that he needs those ad dollars—especially if he’s not cutting the workforce by 75%. It’s widely expected that if/when Musk takes over the site, he will lift the ban on Donald Trump’s account and let him back on the site, along with all sorts of other white supremacists, transphobes, and currently banned bigots. Musk has made it extremely clear that he has no interest in—even a staunch opposition to—content and community moderation.
But Musk’s dream version of a “censorship”-free Twitter would not only be an unusable cesspool of hate speech for us users, it would also be a litigious nightmare for Musk and not exactly appealing for advertisers. Now, though, Musk is promising that the site will not be a “free-for-all hellscape” and that he’s actually excited about the possibility of Twitter becoming “the most respected advertising platform in the world.”
Sure.
After months of threats and lawsuits and flip-flopping, it sure seems like this deal is going to go through before tomorrow’s deadline. Twitter has its (many, many) problems but it’s still been a place for so many people to form friendships, find communities, and even build careers. It’s been an incredible source of news as well as some of the funniest jokes ever told. It’s hard to think it will stay that way moving forward and people are already mourning its seemingly inevitable death.
RIP Twitter, you were a horrible cesspool of trolls and time-suck, but you were our cesspool.
(featured image: Britta Pedersen-Pool/Getty Images)
