Musk’s Management of Twitter May Catch Meta’s and Alphabet’s Attention

Elon Musk is certainly giving big tech a lesson in how to manage decisively. It’s only been four days since he took control of Twitter, but he is reportedly poised to instigate mass layoffs while he simultaneously orders the pursuit of all manner of new business ideas, such as charging users for the privilege of having “verified” status, as The Verge reported. Other Silicon Valley CEOs could learn a thing or two from his willingness to slash costs and generally shake things up.

Instead, big tech companies have acquired reputations for bloat and lethargy—Alphabet and Meta Platforms in particular, as investor Brad Gerstner’s missive to Meta last week made clear. What does it say about their approach to cost management that even in the third quarter, when the ad market was decelerating sharply, they both kept hiring! The quarterly numbers say it all: Alphabet’s operating expenses rose 17.8% on 6% higher revenue growth, while Meta’s rose 18.6% on a 4% drop in revenue. The fact that those earnings reports came out the same week as Musk’s energetic arrival at Twitter highlighted the contrast.