Is he joking?
With Elon Musk, it's often difficult to know.
But experience has shown that the serial entrepreneur takes an original approach to running both his companies and his personal affairs. A true iconoclast, he stands out from other legendary entrepreneurs and investors.
On Nov. 6, 2021, Musk asked Twitter users to vote on whether he should sell part of his stake in electric-vehicle leader Tesla (TSLA) to meet his tax obligations.
"Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?" the tech mogul wrote at the time, offering voters two options: Yes or No.
"I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes," he added in another tweet.
More than 3.5 million people voted, nearly 58% voting in favor of the share sale. A few days later, the billionaire sold sold almost 3.6 million shares of Tesla, valued around $4 billion. He also sold 934,000 additional shares for about $1.1 billion after exercising options to acquire nearly 2.2 million shares, according to regulatory filings.
Another Example of Musk's Unorthodox Approach
Then, a few weeks after he acquired the social network for $44 billion, Musk launched a poll asking Twitter users whether he should step down as CEO. There. too, the voters had two options: Yes or No.
"Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll," the billionaire wrote on Dec. 18.
More than 17.5 million users voted and Yes won the day with 57.5% of the votes cast. After days of silence, Musk, who had said he would abide the result, said he was resigning, but he made it effective only once he found a successor.
Musk Seeks a 'VP of Propaganda, Errr, PR!'
These two examples show that Musk watchers must take seriously even his most surprising declarations.
Now, he has just indicated that Twitter needs someone to take charge of public relations. But in Musk parlance, it's called a propaganda executive.
"We need a VP of Propaganda … errr I mean Public Relations!" Musk wrote on April 10.
The problem, such as it is, is that Musk unofficially occupies this role. And not just for Twitter: The billionaire is the spokesperson, and effectively chief marketing officer, for almost all his companies.
At Twitter, he's an advocate for every decision he's made since becoming the platform's owner.
For example, he recently announced and defended the group's decision to remove the free blue-badge authentication from all those who had it before his takeover. Those who wanted it going forward now had to pay $7.99 a month for individuals accounts and $1,000 a month for organizations.
It was also he who defended his decision to withdraw the blue badge from The New York Times because the newspaper said it would not join the Twitter subscription service.
"NY Times is being incredible hypocritical here, as they are super aggressive about forcing everyone to pay *their* subscription," Musk argued on April 2.
What's Required of a Twitter PR Exec? Unclear.
Musk does not describe the role, but noteworthy is that his announcement comes a few days after a public argument with one of his allies. The freelance journalist Matt Taibbi quit the platform after Twitter blocked promotion of Substack, calling it unsafe. Substack is a popular subscription platform for writers.
Musk said Taibbi's statement was "false" and made inaccurate accusations about Taibbi. It has been corrected by Community Notes, Twitter's fact-checking service. This episode of censorship chilled a significant number of his fans who saw him as a defender of free speech.
A few days ago, Musk announced that Twitter would automatically respond to media requests with a poop emoji.
TheStreet has asked Twitter to confirm or deny that the platform is looking for a vice president of PR. The automated response we received was -- a poop emoji.
