Ex-employee pokes holes in Elon Musk’s latest Twitter theory

Elon Musk, who bought Twitter last month, suggested the platform was the biggest source of referrals.

New Delhi:

Elon Musk’s latest claim that Twitter is the massive driver of clicks to other sites on the internet has been widely opposed and mocked by several users, including a former employee of the social media company.

Musk, who bought Twitter last month, suggested the platform was the biggest source of referrals.

“Twitter drives a huge number of clicks to other sites/apps. By far the biggest click driver on the Internet,”[ads1]; he said in response to an exchange indicating how Twitter “drives so few clicks”.

Twitter generates a huge number of clicks to other websites/apps. By far the largest click driver on the Internet.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 13 November 2022

Claire Diaz-Ortiz, a former Twitter employee, blasted the billionaire’s claim as “100 percent false.”

“Lie. I worked at Twitter for 5 years + wrote 2 books on social media mktg. this is 100% FAKE and Twitter knows it. We have never sold it on clicks, because it is much lower on traffic than FB, LI, etc .Twitter has other important strengths. (& mrking is much more than clicking;) (sic),” she tweeted.

is located. I worked @twitter 5 years + wrote 2 books on social media mktg. this is ? FAKE & @twitter know it. we never sold it on clicks, because it is much lower traffic than FB, LI, etc. twitter has other important strengths. (& mrking is much more than clicks;) https://t.co/ie3ZZT3q7E

— Claire Díaz-Ortiz (@Claire) 13 November 2022

Another user, Tom Coates – a product developer – dismissed Musk’s statement as an “embarrassing mistake”.

Here is just the list for social media from, for example, Statcounter. This is *just* social media. Twitter is not even 10% of them! pic.twitter.com/W1RWkUNTL8

— Tom Coates (@tomcoates) 13 November 2022

“100% wrong. Embarrassing mistake. I mean even if you ignore the search engines it’s wrong. I can feel your ad managers and partnership people (if there are any left) shrink the more you write,” he wrote on Twitter.

He even shared a study showing that Facebook was the leading generator of traffic to other websites at 74.1 percent, far ahead of Twitter’s 7.73 percent.

Elon Musk, who has been looking for ways to make Twitter profitable, raised the possibility of the social media platform going bankrupt on Thursday, two weeks after buying it for $44 billion.

He also warned that Twitter would not be able to “survive the coming economic downturn” if it fails to increase subscription revenue to offset declining advertising revenue, according to reports/

After taking over on October 27, Musk moved to clean house and has said the company was losing more than $4 million a day, largely because advertisers began fleeing when he took over.

Twitter has $13 billion in debt after the deal and faces interest payments totaling nearly $1.2 billion over the next 12 months. The payments exceed Twitter’s most recently disclosed cash flow, which stood at $1.1 billion at the end of June.

He also started charging $8 a month for the Twitter Blue service that will include a blue check confirmation before he stops it on Friday. It will probably “come back at the end of next week”, he said today.