Has Elon Musk Lost His Midas Touch?

Billionaire Twitter owner Elon Musk is known worldwide as a creative and financial genius. Before acquiring the raving social media app, he was an early investor in the electric motor company Tesla, Inc., owns spacecraft manufacturing company SpaceX and co-founded OpenAI, the brain behind the disruptive AI tool, ChatGPT. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is the wealthiest man in the world as of July 2023. 

Recently, Elon Musk has made a name among Gen Z and millennials as a social media animal. So the famous quote, “Make money, not memes,” does not apply to the 52-year-old entrepreneur. With thousands of daily tweets and engagement on his Twitter account, he’s changing the narrative that billionaires can’t be social. In October 2022, Elon reportedly sold 10,000 bottles of Burnt Hair perfume, which he dubbed “The finest fragrance on earth,” in 24 hours—a nod to his massive influencing superpowers. 

However, like athletes reaching the twilight of their careers, there are speculations that Elon’s creative juices might just be dwindling. 

Elon and His Angry Bird

From his controversial coup of ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s management policies—leading to the exit of core team members, to introducing an $8 monthly subscription fee for Twitter Blue checkmarks, the billionaire businessman seems to be falling out of favour with the masses daily. 

Lebron James, Lil Nas X, and Bette Midler were among the many celebrities that commented on the Twitter Blue saga. 

Bette Midler termed Elon Musk “pathetic” after he took away her blue check mark, despite how much she contributed to the bird app. 

On April 24, Bette got her blue check back and tweeted, “Thank you #Elon.” But her victory was short lived when she lost it again 2 hours later. She remains unverified despite having over 1 million followers. The uproar ceased when Elon Musk rescinded the decision and returned the blue checks of thousands of celebrities. Halle Berry and a few others didn’t get theirs back. 

But after a short period of peace, Elon seems to be back with his antics. 

Twitter and its Limits

On Saturday, 1 July, he announced that the Bird app had implemented a new policy where newly registered users can only access 300 tweets daily. Unverified accounts now have a daily viewing limit of 600 posts, while verified ones can access 6000 tweets. This has led many to believe it is just a familiar ploy by the business mogul to get more people to subscribe to Twitter Blue. 

Elon Musk tweeted that the new changes are to reduce illegal data scraping and system manipulation on the micro-blogging platform. He also believes he’s doing Twitter addicts a favour by imposing the new daily view limit. 

In a new update, the daily tweet limit has been increased to 600 for new users, 1000 for unverified accounts, and 10000 for verified tweeps. As expected, there have been several reactions to the billionaire’s decision. On the top of the list is ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has mixed feelings but hopes that the decision is for the best. 

Many users and businesses with unverified accounts are against the decision because of the new limitations. People are complaining about not being able to access their tweets. Some others believe that the latest tweet limit policy would encourage a mass exodus of Twitter users and cause a massive loss to the company. 

For someone renowned for turning everything he touches to gold like the ancient Greek king, Midas, we fear that Elon Musk’s draconian policies might bring his empire to dust and ruin. However, let’s not come to a hasty conclusion. But instead, watch as the drama unfolds to see if he becomes a victim of his success or stands tall against all odds and wins back the reverence he once had in the hearts of many.