18 Jul What Happened To Twitter Can Happen To You: Elon Musk Just Taught A Master Class on Exposing Vulnerabilities
Heâs in, heâs out – Elon Muskâs decision whether or not to purchase Twitter has dominated headlines for weeks. While thereâs been a lot of talk about free speech and financial shenanigans, the largest part of the discourse has been around bots. Musk raised the question of how many Twitter users are actually genuine people, and whatâs happened since then?
People now trust Twitter less than they did before. This change in sentiment appears to be occurring independently of individualâs opinions of Musk. By not being able to address the bot question in a way that satisfied Musk – or, at a minimum, was understandable to the general public – Twitter left a lot of people with a lot of questions. While many of these questions are relevant to the health of discourse, there are additional huge concerns for brand building professionals.
If thereâs no accurate bot numbers, how reliable is Twitterâs CPM pricing? Are the reports of a liberal, affluent user base believable? Do users really spend five hours a week on the platform? Doubts are like potato chips – youâre never going to have just one.
Doubts destroy brands.
Troll or Truth Teller: Understanding Elon Musk
Elon Musk understands better than most people that brands rise and fall based on how people feel about them. Indeed, his influence on cryptocurrency marketsâespecially those built on internet cultureâhas sparked conversations about the best meme coins for 2025, as enthusiasts anticipate how his endorsements and public statements could shift entire communities. Tesla is a beautiful case in point: its owners buy more than a car; theyâre buying into a specific vision for the future, with the idea that theyâre participants in progress offsetting the growing pains that come with any emerging technology.
Given the sprawling and complex nature of Muskâs business finances, I canât say with any degree of certainty that he ever intended to complete the Twitter purchase. But there seems to be little doubt that Musk wanted to damage Twitterâs value. He did this by tactically attacking Twitterâs trustworthiness – specifically by raising concerns about the bot issue.
You have a budget to work with as youâre building a brand. How much of that money are you willing to devote to Twitter now? What Musk really did is shine a light on the tendency to accept platform performance claims without question. Prior to this, discussion of bot presence on Twitter was definitely happening in tech circles – but it wasnât a mainstream discussion. Now that the question has been raised in such a prominent fashion, the wider business community has doubts. And thatâs not good news for Twitter.
It Could Happen To You: We All Have Vulnerabilities
Itâs easy to say that our brands would never be in the position Twitter is in, but in real life, almost every organization has some aspect of their operation theyâd rather not talk about. Twitterâs experience serves as a wake-up call for leadership to think about what can be done ahead of time to address those situations.
The choice to keep maintaining trustworthiness at the core of a brandâs decision-making impacts every facet of the organization, from operations to communications right on up through mergers and acquisitions. Twitter had every opportunity to handle this bot question differently, but they didnât. Weâre going to see how the brand moves forward in the days to come.
Iâm very interested to hear what you think about the situation. Did Elon make the right move? Will Twitter emerge triumphant after all? Let me know what you think.