Do you care too much?
Elon Musk doesn’t care. Love him or hate him, Elon Musk doesn’t care what you think. Or at least it appears that way.
How many branding experts do you think would have proposed or endorsed Elon’s shockingly sudden and seemingly impulsive rebrand of Twitter? And even if they did, how many would have supported the process (if you can call it that) of transitioning the app to its new X.com identity?
If there are marketing branding “gurus” on LinkedIn telling you (with the benefit of hindsight) all the reasons they support Elon’s maverick undertaking, they’re lying. Nobody in their right minds does what he’s doing with multi-billion dollar assets.
And yet, he seems to be getting away with it. While Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads appears to be dwindling as quickly as it arrived, Twitter users continue to be active. Even if they are active predominantly in their expressions of discontent about Twitter (irony much?) Zuckerberg must have been licking his lips at the prospect of wrangling disgruntled users away from what he must have perceived to be a very turbulent Twitter, and somehow, despite Elon’s continuing to experiment with the exuberance of a six-year-old at a pile of LEGO, Twitter ain’t dying.
Is there something constructive us brand custodians can learn from Elon? I think there is. Is the lesson that we can and should experiment with our brands with no thought to the consequences of impact thereof? Certainly not. Elon, to his credit, is willing to be accountable for his decisions, good, bad, and borderline insane. He also has access to resources that most of us can barely imagine never mind replicate, so acting with Musk-like impunity is not the answer. But there is some wisdom in his conduct and I think it’s this:
Elon Musk doesn’t care. Our criticism rolls off him like water off a duck’s back. He is committed to a path, and will not be moved. He is deliberate, determined, and fiercely effective. In a world - and at a time - where brands live in perpetual fear of even remotely offending anyone, I think we could all afford to be more Elonish. What might that look like? Let’s break it down.
Be committed to a direction. Brands that stand for something, stand out. If you’re not offending someone in some way (rightly or wrongly), you’re not working hard enough to differentiate yourself.
Be like a duck. Not all complaints are equal. If you treat every vitriolic, unqualified lout as an justified opinion on your strategy, all the time you could have spent building your brand will be spent looking over your shoulder. Don’t give squeaky wheels all the oil.
Experiment, iterate and learn. My partner Victor has written about this previously (check out his article here), but if you’re never prepared to risk in the pursuit of innovation or differentiation you’ll end up looking and sounding so vanilla that you’ll just be forgotten. What could be worse?
To be clear, this article is not an endorsement of Elon Musk’s business strategy, or his character. In time, his maverick approach to innovation and change could spell doom. It is rather an attempt to understand why the parts of his approach that work well, do work well, and to emulate them where possible.
We should all care enough to care less.