Ad guru Sir Martin Sorrell has weighed in on Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of Twitter – which has seen a host of advertisers leave the platform – calling the move an “unnecessary diversion” for the world’s richest person.
The 77-year-old boss of S4 Capital was speaking to Business Today at the opening of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland.
Sorrell said of Musk’s Twitter takeover, that has seen the 51-year-old’s personal fortune tank a whopping $US200 billion, that “maybe he should have just stuck with a 10 per cent shareholding and a board seat, and not gotten embroiled in this. Because the upside is very little for him.”
“Musk has other fish to fry in Tesla and SpaceX and The Boring Company and many other things. He has to focus on that. Twitter is an unnecessary diversion for him at this time,” Sorrell said.
When asked if he thought Musk could turn things around with the tech platform, Sorrell added: “Well, Elon Musk is incredible. In the BBC documentary on him, one of his employees said he is better than even Einstein. So, be sure to not count him out.”
Yet again, Sorrell also used the interview to spruik the merits of S4’s digital-led capabilities while again warning those (his old adversaries at WPP, perhaps?) still playing in the traditional media space.
“The future for traditional media will continue to be under pressure,” he quipped. “Clients now ask why they are spending enormous amounts of money on classical TV. And why don’t they move that money to digital, which is easier to monitor and perfect. Ultimately, everything will be digital in some way, shape, or form.”
Furthermore, Sorrell warned that traditional media buying and planning could soon come under real pressure from OpenAI’s ChatGPT (in which Microsoft has invested $US10 billion) and “and it would be very effective,” he said.
