The richest man in the world just bought the most influential social media website of all time. Surely, in his wisdom, nothing could go wrong…right? Meritocracy tells us this shouldn’t be a concern, but time and time again we see the incompetence of the super-rich shine through, none more infamously or hilariously than Elon Musk.

1. The Cost of Twitter

While on paper, Elon was the world’s richest man on paper when he purchased the social media giant, most of that net worth was tied up in Tesla stock. According to the New York Times, to acquire the money necessary to finalize the purchase of the social media site he needed creditors, thereby indebting himself in the tens of billions. All for a company that’s rarely ever had a consistent year of profit. Furthermore, the price tag for Twitter ($44 billion) was determined from a stock price that was at historic highs, never reaching that valuation for as long as Twitter stock was on the market.

2. Twitter Blue

Twitter Blue was one of Elon’s first executive actions as CEO, “democratizing” the verification button to the masses of Twitter at $8 a month. While Twitter struggled to stay afloat after the acquisition by Musk, Musk decided to roll out Twitter Blue as one of his first moves in realizing his goal of turning Twitter into a “Free Speech Platform.” Not only has this feature struggled to break even with the revenue loss caused by the exodus of advertisers, according to Slate Magazine, has also failed to incentivize users into purchasing the subscription. This is because the main selling point — the verification badge — isn’t the sought out commodity Musk thought it would be.

3. Further Reforms

After finalizing the purchase of Twitter, Musk has taken to reforming and changing the platform to limited success. According to The Times of India, Musk forced Twitter employees to redesign the website UI. This came to a very negative reception, as most people were put off by the placement of the Like button versus the Like count on a tweet. He’s also taken to unbanning right-wing figures and supposedly censoring left-wing pages or pages critical to him also damaged his reputation.

4. Lawsuits

The first couple of months after the acquisition were rough for Musk. Understandably, while restructuring the company, people had to be cut off in order to cut costs. In America, this sort of corporate behavior wouldn’t make headlines as it’s standard procedure for corporations of Twitter’s size, but the same rules don’t apply in Europe. Thanks to the  European Union’s strict labor laws, an employer can’t simply “fire” someone at a company like Twitter. The employee must be given proper warning instead of an impromptu firing. According to Fortune Magazine, this has led European employees who were terminated to sue Twitter en masse, leading to doubts that Twitter could operate on the continent going forward.

5. Loss of Wealth

Regardless of your net worth, $44 billion is not a small number to scoff at. The exorbitant price of Twitter has left Elon Musk in a more financially strenuous position as he struggles to pay back the financial institutions he loaned out billions from to buy Twitter, and according to The Washington Post, he’s been officially kicked off the pedestal as the world’s richest man. Now sitting at #2, he holds the Guinness World Record for the biggest loss in personal net worth in all of history. From $320 billion in January 2021 to $138 billion in January 2023, it’s yet to be seen if Musk can come back from this loss of wealth and complete his goals with Twitter.