At a high level there are two directions you can take with the public-facing portion of leadership: 1. Appeal broadly to as many people as possible. 2. Appeal

At a high level there are two directions you can take with the public-facing portion of leadership: 1. Appeal broadly to as many people as possible. 2. Appeal strongly to a subset of people. #1 is more principled and idealistic, and produces more stable results, but it's more difficult. #2 is easier - it also allows greater focus and frankness - but it increases conflict and instability, since to be effective it usually involves not just ignoring, but explicitly antagonizing those outside or opposed to the chosen subset. Typically option #1 is the safer bet, but the more divided your audience becomes, the greater the effectiveness of option #2. Also, #2 is just more appealing if you, personally, already have an affinity for the chosen subset. Musk is taking option #2, and his chosen subset are "trolls", for lack of a more specific word. Obviously you could reasonably call tons of people on all sides of all issues "trolls", because there's no shortage of petty people for any given disagreement. I'm referring to a specific subset of people who jump quickly to hatred and mocking others, and do so to their face, or in public, or on social media. People who don't simply act shitty when an argument breaks out, but rather who make "asshole" a part of their overall personality (take a look at the Musk-supportive Tweets for prime examples). Normally this is a small group, but the more divided people become, the more individuals fall into this group. In other words, imagine person A says to person B, "I'm so sorry you weren't notified," and then privately explains the decision to fire them. That's generic option #1 stuff. Now let's say person A laughs and antagonizes person B. There is a default social contract that basically says, "if you antagonize somebody in a way that maximizes pettiness/obnoxiousness, you will repel almost everybody, because even the people who agree abstractly with you won't want to be associated with such childish, revolting behavior." However, the more division increases in your audience, then if persons A and B are perceived to be in different "groups", the more people in the same perceived group as person A will be willing to explicitly stand with them in that pettiness/obnoxiousness. That's how option #2 becomes more viable.