<p>Elon Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter will likely fail. He doesn’t have the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://twitter.com/IvanTheK/status/1514565812513820677" target="_blank">money lined up</a>. The company’s board is <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-14/twitter-is-said-to-weigh-poison-pill-defense-to-thwart-musk-bid" target="_blank">wary of selling</a>. Its stock <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://twitter.com/Kantrowitz/status/1514726161783398405" target="_blank">hasn’t budged</a> despite his premium offer. And he’s already <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/elon-musk-plan-b-twitter-offer" target="_blank">discussing Plan B</a>.</p><p>Anything can happen with Musk involved, but a failed deal’s aftermath could be brutal for Twitter. After growing revenue by 37% last year, the company was off to a promising start in 2022. Now it’s in chaos: Its stock is volatile, its employees are rattled, analysts are bailing and its leadership looks weak. It will face a long recovery if Musk backs away now.</p><p>“There's frustration,” said a former Twitter executive Thursday. “They were having a pretty good year and now there's all this distraction and noise in the system.”</p><h2>Stock Volatility Ahead</h2><p>Twitter’s most immediate issue is its stock volatility. The company’s share price shot up 27% when Musk announced he’d bought his 9.1% stake. If he walks away now, it could just as quickly plunge. Musk made clear he’d be willing to tank the stock if Twitter doesn’t play ball, via his SEC filing. </p><div class="article-body-ad-placeholder">{"gptAdId":"testId"}</div><p>“If the deal doesn’t work,” he said. “I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.”</p><p>Through his investment, Musk made Twitter the world’s most prominent meme stock. The fundamentals of the company didn’t change overnight, but its valuation did — just like Gamestop and AMC. And while those companies' share prices are now higher than before their meme stock days, their leaders have struggled to plan without knowing how they’d be valued the next day. Twitter could face similar issues.</p><p>“The CEO and CFO of Gamestop left after the whole up and down cycle,” Margins analyst Ranjan Roy said on <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6O0T8JmfjPChVlUAF80FNv?si=BvlKnjVXRWCH8r9pBqKapg" target="_blank">Big Technology Podcast</a>. “That volatility — it’s not intrinsically a good thing even though your stock is going up.”</p><p><strong>Related Article: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.reworked.co/leadership/elon-musk-and-twitters-business-are-on-a-collision-course/" target="_blank">Elon Musk and Twitter's Business Are on a Collision Course</a></strong></p><h2>The Next Challenge: Employee Discontent</h2><p>If Twitter gets its share price under control, it would then have to figure out how to settle its employees, whose morale is sinking. Over the past two weeks, Musk has wondered aloud about building things Twitter employees were working on, he’s insulted their projects, and he’s surmised the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512785529712123906" target="_blank">platform could be dying</a> because people like Justin Bieber don’t tweet enough. Musk’s push for free speech, meanwhile, thrust Twitter employees directly into the culture war. Many conservatives now see them as power-hungry censors in opposition to the free flow of ideas.</p><div class="article-body-webinars-placeholder">null</div><p>Some Twitter employees have already expressed exasperation at the Musk-driven chaos. One longtime engineer, for instance, pointed reporters to an image of a skeleton in a car checking its phone as an illustration of what he'll look like when there's a "normal" week at Twitter.</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">me when there's finally a normal week working at twitter dot com <a href="https://t.co/twLozGzjiN">pic.twitter.com/twLozGzjiN</a></p>— Menotti Minutillo  (@44) <a href="https://twitter.com/44/status/1510987953937412102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><p>This week was supposed to be "<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1514620492832858120?cxt=HHwWkICjzYfUgYUqAAAA" target="_blank">focus week</a>" at the company. But instead of focusing on their projects, Twitter employees spent their days wondering if Musk would take them over. It’s not easy to bounce back to normal after that.</p><h2>It's Too Late to Avoid a Leadership Crisis</h2><p>Finally, Twitter’s leaders will likely struggle to maintain their credibility after guiding the company through this episode. Just a week ago, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and CEO Parag Agrawal welcomed Musk to the board with open arms. Though this may have been an attempt to ward off Musk’s activism, it backfired when Musk didn’t end up joining. In his SEC filing, days after the lovefest, Musk declared he has no faith in Twitter management.</p><p>Twitter employees believe their executives did what they could. But leaders must guide with a steady hand and prevent such turbulence. When they welcomed Musk — the world’s most impressive businessman — to the board only to be met with a hostile takeover soon after, it was a failure. Now, they could face lawsuits from angry shareholders if the deal falls through. Another distraction.</p><p>Without a deal, Twitter will be left beaten down just as things started looking up. Perhaps this is its destiny. But it’s easy to understand why some analysts are now turning on the company. </p><p>“Full Blown Elon Circus,” Stifel analyst Mark Kelley <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/sell-twitter-stock-on-this-full-blown-elon-circus-stifel-says.html" target="_blank">wrote Thursday</a>. “Downgrade to sell.”</p>

Leadership

What Happens to Twitter After Elon Musk's Takeover Fails

Editorial

eBook

eBooks

The right survey strategy needn’t be complex, but it must be deliberate. This e-book provides you with the four key elements of a brand building survey program.

Customer Experience

How to Make Every Survey a Top Customer Experience

White Paper

White Papers

The rate of change in eCommerce has always been fast. Yes, Covid-19 has come along and put everything into overdrive. But a lot of these external factors were already in play before we even knew Covid existed.

How to Stay Ahead of Ecommerce in 2022 and Beyond

Buyer's Guide

Buyer's Guides

A content style guide is the backbone of your enterprise content strategy — it’s the difference between providing average or incredible experiences for your customers.

Content Style Guide

Research Report

Research Reports

While most organizations still struggle to fully understand their customers, the successful ones are exhibiting technology investment patterns which result in the delivery of superior customer experiences.

The State of Digital Customer Experience

It’s no secret that the most successful companies are able to attract and retain top talent, yet employee experience remains a consistent challenge for many of today’s global enterprises.

Digital Workplace

Employee Retention

Customer Data Platforms Market Guide (2022 Q1)

This market guide examines the current state of the industry for a detailed look at leading vendors that are pushing the limits of what a DXP can do.

Digital Experience

Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Market Guide

Featuring real-world case studies and insights for your organization, this report will help you to deliver, manage and improve your digital workplace, and support your workforce as you navigate what the next phase of working will look like.

The State of the Digital Workplace

Today’s omnichannel customer experience world is proving challenging. Nearly 20% of brands saw a decrease in CX quality. 

Online

Exceptional Omnichannel Customer Experience: What it Looks Like, How to Achieve & Measure it

Are you leveraging deep customer insights to hyper-personalize your communications? Or are you still just talking to a segment?

How to Hyper-Personalize Your Customer Communications Across Channels

Learn how some of the world's most beloved brands are setting the bar for employee engagement.

Unlocking the Power of AI in the Contact Center

Learn why employees are still resigning in 2022

Beat the Great Resignation with Process Improvement

Digital Workplace Experience - Q3 2022

How Great Organizations Empower Customer Experience Teams

Digital Experience Summit  - Q3 2022

Succeeding in the Era of the Intelligent Workplace

Digital Workplace Experience - Q4 2022

Future CX - Blending Physical & Digital Experiences

Digital Experience Summit - Q4 2022

Boost employee engagement and retain workers in a hybrid environment

How to Boost Employee Sentiment in 2022

How Louis Vuitton, Carrefour, Tesco, Pepsi Co., and PVH made the switch to NoSQL

5 Modern Data-Driven Applications That Transformed Employee and Customer Experiences

As hybrid workplaces become the norm, intentionally embracing this new way of working is one key to success.

Empowering and Enabling Teams in the New Hybrid Workspace

Robin recently surveyed 300+ professionals to better understand what great leadership looks like in a hybrid world.

Power Hybrid Work With Tech That Connects

Collaboration and Cooperation: Two Key Elements That Drive Successful DCX

The digital employee experience has never been more critical

2022 State of the Digital Workplace

FHI 360 saves $400k with Intelligent Hardware Refresh

Create Cost-effective Hardware Refresh Cycles

The New Era of Well-Being: How to Realize Your Potential and Succeed at Work & Life

Digital Mental Health Support: Helping Remote Workers Fight Burnout and Loneliness

How creating engaged workplaces drives business impact and delivers optimal customer experiences

Modernized Knowledge Management: The New Driving Force Behind a Great Employee and Customer Experience

How to create a plan that brings collaboration back into the office

Rediscovering Collaboration in the Office

Digital Experience Summit  - Q2 2022

Embracing & Optimizing the Hybrid Workplace

Digital Workplace Experience - Q2 2022

Customer Experience Strategies for an Accelerated Reality

Digital Experience Summit - Q1 2022

Welcome to the New Now of Employee Experience

Digital Workplace Experience - Q1 2022

Keys to ensuring technology platforms are intuitive and accessible for all

Voice of the Employee: Aligning Employee Listening with User Experience Tools and Services

Learn the factors that are important to employees as they evaluate new job prospects

Hiring New Talent in the Era of the Great Resignation

Learn about what has worked - and what hasn’t - to help retain talent at other organizations

Retaining Employees in the Era of the Great Resignation

Effective human capital management practices are key to thriving during the workplace revolution.

Workplace Origami: Making Sense of the Forces Shaping the Workplace in 2021

How the Liberty Mutual team is approaching personalization in the workplace.

How Liberty Mutual Drove Global Efficiency with Drupal as the Foundation for their Intranet

The workplace is changing in ways we couldn’t have anticipated. Here are the top considerations for organizations as they adapt.

Top 10 Challenges For the Workplace of the Future

Learn how leading organizations use EX tools to connect people with the resources they need in the field or on the move.

Making the Employee Experience Empathetic to Frontline Workers

Learn how to build a work environment that enables people to do their best work and creates more satisfied and productive teams.

If Employee Experience Isn’t Your Department’s Top Priority, It Should Be

Learn how Mondelēz International’s unified communications team is improving employee experience with better communication.

Making Teams Work: The New Era in Unified Communications

Learn how to accelerate your business's digital transformation with modern and agile development platforms.

Low-Code — The Enabler that Brings IT & Business Together

How AI improves each stage of the search journey

Moving Beyond Traditional Enterprise Search

How to leverage business process management (BPM) for operational excellence

These Companies Excel at BPM and Process Automation and You Can Too

How to build a new team culture dedicated to the proactive mindset.

Mondelēz: 3 Steps to a Data-Informed, More Proactive IT Department

Learn the three steps companies should take to create a successful hybrid enterprise and enable better productivity.

How to Create a Successful Hybrid Enterprise Using Slack

Join Workgrid’s Rob Ryan and Frank Pathyil to discuss the challenges in building or buying an intranet.

How to Modernize Your Intranet and Avoid the Build or Buy Headache

Get a frontline view on the considerations and technologies organizations are evaluating as they reopen the office.

Let’s Get Ready to Reopen!

In this webinar, we’ll explore real-world use cases that illustrate the transformational benefits of employee-centric IT.

The Race for Digital Transformation: Employee-Centric IT Against the Odds (with Paddy Power Betfair)

Digital workplace expert Sam Marshall leads a live fireside chat exploring the challenges in adapting to a complex world of work.

How AI Can Unify Your Digital Workplace

Hear how leading companies are reimagining their digital transformation projects and identifying new opportunities for growth.

Making the Complex Possible: How to Accelerate Your Digital Transformation

Explore the innovative tools that help make the transition back to hybrid and in-office work seamless.

How to Use Space Reservation Tools to Return to the Office Safely

Explore how to implement a cross-departmental center for employee experience and make the biggest impact.

Liberty Mutual: Building a Center of Excellence for Employee Experience

Hear how Cisco embraced a culture of trust and conscious leadership to power an inclusive workforce.

[CMSWire Webinar] Best Practices for Enabling a Remote and Hybrid Workforce

Join us to explore the future of collaboration and knowledge management in modern organizations.

What Happens to Twitter After Elon Musk's Takeover Fails

About the author

Tags

Featured Research