Elon Musk’s plan is to run Twitter off the top of his head

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

By the end of the virtual town hall that Musk hosted for employees of the micro-blogging site, one question was bigger than most: can you really run it off your head?

Over 60 or so minutes, the world's richest man answered questions from employees about everything from remote work to layoffs. He would give workers concrete answers to a bunch of sentence fragments.

Will the majority of the workforce be able to work from home? If they are good, maybe, according to Musk. He said it was better if you were on location.

What kind of policies will he support? He said that we should allow people to speak. According to Insider's Kali Hays and Hugh Langley, Musk said to make it attractive. It means not showing people content that would offend them. Boring is not a good thing. TikTok makes sure you don't get bored.

What should be done with the social media site? He said it was a Chinese-style superapp. Like Tik Tok. Payments and subscriptions are included. The recipe for attracting 1 billion users is somewhere in the mix of half-baked ideas.

I spoke to several employees after the meeting. Most of the reactions were negative. Since he began his war of attrition against the company's board, Musk has expressed genuine enthusiasm about owning and running the company.

Employees told me that the conversation reinforced their beliefs about Musk. If I made a cloud of employee responses, they would be incoherent, incomprehensible, and boring.

At one point Musk mentioned that he has seen no evidence of alien life, and no one really knew what to think of that.

The people I talked to know what it takes to run a social media site. They said it was odd to hear someone speak with so much confidence about a company that is only beginning to comprehend.

It is worth noting that the hour Musk spent with employees today might have been the longest period of time he has thought about what it will mean to run the company.

Questions chosen for Musk to answer were not threatening. No one was allowed to ask about the recent harassment allegations against him, his criticism of currentTwitter executives, or his attempts to blow up the deal he signed. He dodged the question about potential layoffs because he noted that the company is losing money. According to analysts, Musk will probably cut 20 percent of the workforce.

Musk offered platitudes about the future of civilization as employees wondered what the acquisition would mean for them. He wants to contribute to a better, long- lasting civilization where we better understand reality.

It was an answer to whether Musk would take the title of CEO upon the deal's close. The question was more than fair because Musk takes a mischievous approach to corporate titles and his CFO is a master of coin.

Musk said it was telling. This time it's from Insider again.

Regardless of his title, Musk does want to “drive the product in a particular direction” and intends to lead improvement on the platform’s software, product, and design.

“I don’t mind doing other things related to operating a company, but there are chores,” he said. “I really just want to make sure that the product evolves rapidly and in a good way. I don’t really care what title is, but obviously, people do need to listen to me.”

Running a company as CEO requires that you pay a lot of attention to the details, which I don't want to do. I will make a lot of statements about what the product should be.

If you talk to people who have worked with Musk at other companies, they will tell you this is how he runs them. Musk's priorities are often based on little more than a hunch, and the details and any technological breakthrough that might be required to achieve them are left to his work force.

One way to look at Musk's answers is that they are not up to par, but it may be worth considering that this is as baked as some of them will ever get. Musk's new head of product might give instructions like "figure out payments," "Make it more like TikTok," and "add 770 million users." Employees will be charged if they stay at their desks.

Steve Jobs is the obvious example of this type of leadership, but there is a reason why it is rare. In the long run, even-keeled, detail-oriented founders tend to beat charismatic shamans. It's good for recruitment, retention, and innovation.

I think that is truer today than it was 20 years ago. It's very disappointing that our CEO continues to park in spaces reserved for employees with disabilities.

The success of Musk's company has been the easy way to respond to this criticism. The company sells as many cars as it can manufacture to the most satisfied customers in the entire auto industry.

I see the consequences of Musk's leadership when I look at the growing number of investigations. Musk made a promise to drive himself. Engineers scramble to make it happen. Who will be brave enough to tell the king if they can't? It might not be as easy to just ship it and deal with the consequences later.

There are signs that this is going to break. Employees at another Musk company wrote an open letter to their leadership condemning Musk's behavior. The writer is Grush.

The letter, reviewed by The Verge, describes how Musk’s actions and the recent allegations of sexual harassment against him are negatively affecting SpaceX’s reputation. […]

“Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the letter states. “As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company. It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.”

The force of Musk's personality has helped him a lot. You wonder how long the act can continue when you see him stretch himself across more companies. Over the past six months, the stock of the company has fallen 31 percent. The laws of gravity sometimes apply to a world's richest man.

Musk said he would be back for an encore Q&A with employees of the social media company. He appeared to reference a sex position when he turned off his video at the end of the Q&A.

I talked to some employees who said they were doing their best to stay focused. Musk is trying to lower the deal price. No one is more concerned about the future of the social network than Musk. He has his own way of doing things, and they will suffice for now.