Elon Musk finalised his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and officially took over as CEO of the social media platform in October. Since then, it seems we can’t go a day without a new scandal erupting from Twitter HQ, making it the ultimate nightmare fuel for PR professionals around the world.
The latest controversy comes as Twitter staff received a late-night email from Musk himself asking them to ‘opt in’ to what was described as an ‘extremely hardcore’ Twitter 2.0 model. If employees were up to the task of ‘working long hours at high intensity’, they were to click a button by 5 pm the next day. Anyone who failed to RSVP to Twitter 2.0 would receive three months’ severance pay and a swift farewell from the company.
After mass staff layoffs, losing several major advertisers, and the comically short-lived blue tick subscription service, it’s felt as though Musk has managed to fit a year’s worth of bad PR into a few short weeks. But for a man who famously fired his Tesla PR department in 2020 and cut a large portion of the Twitter communications department within days of his arrival as CEO, these latest antics shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Elon Musk
We’ve seen plenty of instances in the past where Musk’s reputation was put into question. Most notably, his decision to re-open a Tesla factory in violation of COVID public health orders – resulting in 450 employees contracting the virus – caused quite the backlash. And who could forget the time he smoked marijuana during his interview with Joe Rogan, publicly violating his own Tesla employee drug policy and causing stock prices to plummet 6%?
Despite these stories making major headlines at the time, stock prices quickly recovered and the dust settled soon after. This leads me to a question I never thought I would ask as a PR professional: can Musk bounce back from these Twitter scandals like he has in the past, further proving that money and power are the ultimate antidotes to bad PR?
For the 99.999% of people on planet Earth who earn less than Elon Musk, reputation is everything. It’s what makes people trust us enough to invest their time and money into helping our ventures grow. An intelligent public relations strategy is central to this, building trust in the good times, guiding the way we respond to crises, pivot during hard times, and respond to criticism.
As the world’s richest man and CEO of a platform with almost 400 million users, Musk currently has enough power and money to dodge the pitfalls of a bad reputation. His stock prices bounce back, his outbursts fuel more attention, and his bad decisions are forgiven.
However, if the money and power were to falter – and that may happen, even according to Musk himself – he could find himself in hot water. Without extreme wealth and power backing him, he will instead have to rely on earned trust and respect like the rest of us. Judging by the controversies of the past few weeks alone, this doesn’t seem to be a lifeline Musk can bank on.
Only time will tell whether Musk’s cowboy approach to managing his reputation will pay off in the end. For those of us not on the Forbes rich list, a great public relations strategy isn’t a luxury – it’s the strongest currency we have when it comes to building well-respected, long-lasting brands. So unless you have a few hundred billion reasons not to, don’t do an Elon and fire your PR team just yet.
Phoebe Netto is the founder of Pure Public Relations, a PR firm started 11 years ago that focuses on outcomes, not output – it’s pure and simple. Pure Public Relations offers media relations, issues management and communication services, and has a reputation for securing excellent media coverage and an impressive track record for issues management.
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Top image: Phoebe Netto