Elon Musk is the Basil Fawlty of social media | David Mitchell

The Twitter owner's latest public debacle over a sacked worker can only do more damage to the company's future prosperity

As someone who wishes Twitter didn't exist, I am obviously an enormous fan of Elon Musk. He seems to be running it like one of those central London pubs that get bought by property developers who then have to prove the business is unviable in order to win planning permission to turn it into flats. I apologise for the length of that simile, but it's an interesting comparison. Those stealth-saboteur landlords have to keep it plausible. The business must fail by doing the sort of thing an idiot might sincerely believe would succeed. Live music, an open mic night, potato wedges instead of chips, that sort of thing.

Musk's Twitter approach is very plausible. He tried to back out of taking over the firm, but then there was a court case and he was forced to buy it and it was both intergalactically expensive and losing money at a dazzling rate. Hence he seems desperate to cut costs and ramp up revenue. On the face of it, that's a solid business strategy. Well, almost - it would be, but for the word seems". All businesses, whether they're losing money or making it, want to cut costs and increase revenue, but they have to be wary of seeming too much that they do - especially if they're in the leisure sector. Even the property developer's pub must stop short of advertising that they're now selling worse beer at a higher cost or that they've got rid of most of the kitchen staff so you should expect long waits if you order food.