JSML
Member
Elon’s stated goal is a trusted platform that is essential for democracies. Not tweaks.I disagree. Musk is an outstanding engineer, no doubt. But he's still one guy. His real skill is the ability to put a team together, to identify the right people and skills for that team, and to lead and inspire them to do things that are beyond any reasonable expectation. Nothing he's attempted is truly...unique. Other companies built electric cars-but none successfully built one that has people converting in droves from ICE. None achieved the engineering and product efficiency, none, including companies with a century of experience has touched Tesla's manufacturing efficiencies. None has done nearly as good a job managing supply chains throughout a global pandemic. NASA has spent billions since the shuttle was developed, dabbled with programs for 40 years, never built a reusable rocket (other than portions of the STS)-and has us hitching rides into orbit on Russian space craft. Until Elon and SpaceX, space travel required the resources and finances of a nation-state, not a small, private company. Musk didn't do those things by himself-he built and led the teams that did those things, and had the courage to risk his life's savings many times over on new ventures. There is a reason that Tesla and SpaceX are the dream companies for young engineers to work for-and that reason is Elon Musk.
I think the Twitter issue is way overstated. He may simply want to revise Twitter such that all points of view are allowed and respected, one where "group think" and conformity isn't demanded, where alternatives to prevailing thought may be presented and discussed. And lets face it, Twitter's interface and user tools are pretty terrible, it wouldn't take much to make them better. Reforming Twitter and putting together a much better, more capable and more efficient team to run it, really doesn't seem like it would take a lot of effort or a great deal of Elon's time. At least in comparison to developing the EV industry or revolutionizing manned space flight or creating a global internet service. I'd strongly suspect he already knows who he would want in leadership positions and where he wants to go. Lets face it, it's just software. He did more complicated things with PayPal when he was just a kid (well, at my age anyone under 45 is a kid) and when the technology was new and far less understood.
Group think and conformity are not software problems and it’s doubtful software can make it better.
It could work but there are a no guarantees. There is a huge possibility that what happens on Facebook will happen on Twitter because it is the culture that wags the platform. My suspicion is that unbanning people and subjects will not make Twitter a more trusted platform.