Elon Musk still didn't answer the biggest question about X
- Elon Musk said on Wednesday that advertisers who are abandoning X can go "fuck" themselves.
- But he avoided questions about whether he'd ever sell X — or use his own money to keep it running.
The most notable thing Elon Musk said during his appearance at the Dealbook Summit on Wednesday was an unmentionable word, which he said repeatedly — suggesting advertisers could do it to themselves.
It was shocking (and not just because of the expletives).
The big question that's left hanging after the interview: What happens now to X?
After Musk said an advertiser who would threaten to boycott X should — OK, we'll say it just the once — "go fuck yourself," Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Musk if he would use his own personal wealth to keep X afloat. Musk didn't directly answer, but said "If the company fails because of advertiser boycott, it will fail … and it will be gone."
Musk didn't answer the other key question he was asked: "Is there any part of you that says, 'Maybe I should sell [X] or give it away?" That is, given that it's apparently nothing but a headache to him.
Instead, Musk went into a defense of his recent controversial tweet in response to an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
So would Musk ever just get out of X? If so, what is his exit strategy?
X appears to be in deep trouble. It already was — and now it's worse.
Whether CEO Linda Yaccarino is able to salvage some of the advertiser revenue is anyone's guess. Advertisers have already been fleeing X. And it's questionable even if she'll stick around much longer.
Reportedly, Yaccarino has been getting texts from ad execs advising her to quit before she permanently ruins her reputation. Another report says that X advertising sales staffers are resigning.
But it's hard to imagine there's any way for Yaccarino to succeed after what Musk just said on Wednesday.
If Musk isn't willing to reach into his own pockets — and he didn't exactly say he wouldn't; he did that in the past for Tesla — how does the former Twitter keep going for another year, another five years?
What does it look like if the company fails, as he put it? Does it just … shut down?
There's a theory that Musk is secretly sabotaging X to bring down its debt — something along the lines of burning down a failing restaurant for the insurance money. My personal opinion is that theory seems a little more like a game of 4-D chess than the simpler and more likely version: Musk is just plain bad at running a social platform and lacks the impulse control not to say stupid stuff.
People have been declaring "Twitter is dead" since the days after Musk took over. It feels like there's been a requiem for it every few months, when a new nail in the coffin seems to get hammered in.
But the site is still up, people are still using it, I'm still checking it 18 times a day.
This time, it seems like the end is really coming — and soon. What we don't know — and Musk wouldn't really answer — is how this final stage could play out.