Angelo Carusone: Even if there is a new CEO at Twitter, Elon Musk will still be the “ultimate decision-maker”
“Ultimately it's going to still be subject to his whims, to his policies and sort of his decisions and that's really what matters the most for the users and for the future of the platform.”
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From the December 24, 2022, edition of MSNBC Reports
RICHARD LUI (HOST): And according to a new report, some journalists who were suspended from Twitter for alleged rule violations have yet to get their accounts fully reinstated today. An article in the Washington Post says it's because the journalists have not deleted the original tweets that drew Elon Musk's ire. Joining me now is president and CEO of Media Matters Angelo Carusone. Alright Angelo, where do you want to start? The -- You know, right before Christmas. I'm very curious about the new CEO, no new CEO. He took the vote, he says now they're bots.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT): Right. Yes, I think it's inevitable at some point that he may find someone to come in and sort of do some of the day-to-day operational management work. But ultimately, you know, when you think about a CEO role is, right? It is who is the ultimate decision-maker? He doesn't even care about the title of CEO. He's talked about this before at multiple conferences in relation to other companies. He's going to be the decision-maker and that's not going to change, so we may see an improvement, he may bring somebody in that could be a little bit of a better manager, but ultimately it's going to still be subject to his whims, to his policies and sort of his decisions and that's really what matters the most for the users and for the future of the platform.
LUI: Yes, he is a hands-on manager. We saw that with his other two companies historically and regardless of the title, what you're saying, he's still gonna be right in the middle of it. Right? It could be a dishwasher. He's there.
CARUSONE: Exactly. That's right. I mean, he really sees this as sort of an avatar for his own ideology and his own sort of interests. Right? So, it doesn't really matter who has the title of CEO. It is going to really just be sort of an extension of him and his worldview.
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CARUSONE: [Musk] is really not able to borrow very much money without putting almost all of his stock on the line and a lot of it is already leveraged for other deals, so he's in a bind. And what ended up happening is when he took over Twitter, he basically drove away all of their revenue. So Twitter was already losing a couple of hundred million dollars a year, about 200 and change. He's basically multiplied that by 10 now because his entire advertising base has walked away from the platform. And they've done that, not because of him personally, but basically because of all the things that he's done, specifically around brand safety and community safeguards and rolling all that back.