T-Mobile’s former CEO John Legere posted on Twitter over the weekend, offering to “run Twitter.” Elon Musk promptly responded with a hard “no.”
It’s unclear whether the Twitter exchange was all in jest or whether Legere was serious. More than one commenter pointed out that Legere was an amazing turnaround CEO and culture builder in the telecom industry. But then, the Twitter conversation quickly devolved into people insulting each other and going off on irrelevant tangents – pure freedom of speech at work!
Since taking over Twitter on October 27, Musk has been learning the hard way that managing news and information is not so easy. On his first day, he penned a message to advertisers saying, “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”
Maybe the old days, when newspapers first went online and allowed a comment section, was before Musk’s time. Because a “hellscape with no consequences” was exactly what those comment sections were. Newspapers didn’t have the staff to try and moderate all the hate speech, profanity and vulgarity. And they weren’t too keen about taking on the legal risks of libel, either. They discontinued comment sections in short order.
As an aside, regular news outlets don’t enjoy the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and are at more risk of being sued for defamation than social media platforms are. But Congress has looked at revising Section 230.
Musk has called himself a “free speech absolutist.” But he’s never clearly articulated what that means. Perhaps he should have consulted with a First Amendment scholar before he offered to pay $44 billion for Twitter.
Instead, he’s been going it alone. One can’t help but think of Greek mythology where many a hero was brought down by hubris.
Since taking over Twitter, Musk has fired most of the company’s top management and half of its employees, making it only that much harder to moderate content, appease advertisers and put the company on a path toward profit.
John Legere
Meanwhile, Legere was an effective CEO and turn-around artist. During his seven-year tenure at T-Mobile he transformed the company into a powerful third wireless competitor. The Un-carrier became known for its robust marketing, customer service and fun culture. Wall Street was, and continues to be, happy with it as well.
Most famously, Legere oversaw the purchase of Sprint.
Many have commented on Legere’s leadership style. It was unlike any other in telecom. He listened to people and built consensus. Journalists got a good look at T-Mobile corporate culture during the company’s earnings calls, where everyone was wearing magenta, telling jokes and having a good time. And the company was transparent, even taking questions from reporters, which is a rarity on quarterly earnings.
One commenter on the Twitter thread about Legere’s offer to run the company was Jacob Espinoza who held leadership roles in customer service at T-Mobile during Legere’s time. He pointed to many examples of Legere’s ability to inspire people, gain massive attention and make the company profitable.
Those are all qualities that Twitter could use.
In his Twitter offer Legere said he could manage the daily business and content moderation while Musk supported product and technology.
Sounds like a reasonable idea to me.