You think Elon Musk is unpredictable? Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey vehemently disagrees with you. Defending his fellow billionaire’s approach, the former Twitter CEO said that Elon Musk laying off employees and dumping advertisers makes sense as he is more focussed on free speech on the microblogging platform. In an interview, Jack Dorsey said that Elon Musk is attempting to create a bastion for free speech and Twitter chose brand advertising as its main source of income which was a “core, critical sin” that exposed the platform’s moderation to the whims of corporations.
He said, “And when you’re entirely dependent on that, if a brand like P&G or Unilever doesn’t like what’s happening on the platform, and they threaten to pull the budget, which accounts for like 20% of your revenue? You have no choice.”
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Elon Musk has rebranded Twitter to X and the platform has seen an advertiser exodus since 2023 when he appeared to endorse an antisemitic post and aired controversial remarks on the platform.
Jack Dorsey said that Elon Musk made the right choice to stick by his vision for a censorship-free “digital town square” and reduce emphasis of the platform on advertisers.
“You have to build up a lot more than advertising to make that model work. You have to build subscriptions, which Elon is doing. You have to build commerce,” he said.
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Elon Musk also changed Twitter’s subscription service by giving blue-check verification to paid users. To this, Jack Dorsey said that bleeding is part of decoupling from big advertisers’ control.
“Twitter was a $5 billion a year business. I don’t know what it is now, but it’s obviously nowhere near that, right? These are choices that can be made, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be the same level of business for quite some time, until you figure out a completely different model around it,” he said.
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Jack Dorsey also defended mass layoffs at Twitter during which Elon Musk slashed global headcount by 80%. Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 and it was earlier reported that the social media platform is worth less than half of what he bought it for.
