Back in November of 2022, when X Formerly Twitter was known by the simpler name “Twitter”, I theorized the Elon Musk was trying to destroy the company he’d just purchased in order to break its hold over him. I wrote:

My most charitable explanation for this whole mess is that Musk recognized his own crippling Twitter addiction, and decided the only way to stop it was to buy and kill the company. In that case, he’s doing a great job so far!

In the nearly 13 months since, there’s been plenty of noise and nonsense, but I haven’t seen anything that proves my half-joking theory is incorrect.

Over at Slate, Alex Kirshner has his own related theory for what Musk is doing with Twitter now.

He is no longer interested in salvaging Twitter as a business…Musk will never make Twitter worth anything near what he paid for it, but he can use it to make himself a free-speech martyr and recast his own business failures as an ideological stand against censorship. That, today, is what he wants with Twitter. Take Musk seriously when he threatens (if that’s the word) that advertisers will kill Twitter. He might like that just fine.

It’s very hard to imagine this spin working. However, the monetary benefits of writing down this investment and the likely bump in Tesla stock could be reason enough alone to tank the company.