Elon Musk Admits Twitter May Be Failing Under His Leadership

Admit One

X-formerly-Twitter owner Elon Musk has admitted what we all suspect: that under his leadership, the site may not be thriving after all.

"The sad truth is that there are no great 'social networks' right now," the multi-hyphenate billionaire posted. "We may fail, as so many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one."

This admission comes after a glitch over the weekend caused some images and links posted before December 2014 to be deleted. As The Verge reports, the issue seems to be related to the social network's built-in URL shortener.

Among the deleted images was Ellen DeGeneres' famous star-studded Oscars selfie, which was apparently the most-retweeted photo of all time, though unlike most of the now-broken it was eventually restored.

It was a rare moment of self-reflection for Musk, whose chaotic run at the former bird site has been characterized by swaggering bravado. Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino, for her part, did retweet — or "repost," per the new branding — Musk's message and add her own touch.

"There is an important place in the world for X," the CEO wrote.

Fail Me Once

Though his brand is built on braggadicio, this isn't the first time Musk seems to have pondered the possibility of defeat in the social media space.

Shortly after Yaccarino took over as CEO over the summer, the site's owner admitted in a Twitter Spaces discussion that "half of our advertising disappeared overnight" after he bought the site — though he qualified that statement by saying that it was due to his insistence on "free speech," which is Muskian code for letting bigots back onto the platform and refusing to punish hate speech.

He also appeared to concede earlier this year that buying the social network may not have been the best decision for his bottom line.

"It remains to be seen as to whether this was financially smart," Musk told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson during an interview in April. “Currently, it is not."

Those admissions aside, however, this latest acknowledgment doesn't have the same slathering of caveats, and instead does actually give the sense that Musk may be beginning to realize that he's driving the site into the ground — though as many have conjectured, that may have been the plan all along.

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