FOLLY is given two meanings in most dictionaries.

First, an act of foolishness or supremely daft idea. Second, in relation to buildings, a structure that’s ornamental and serves no practical purpose other than to indulge one’s ego.

A fine example is McCaig’s Folly. A Romanesque mini colosseum which stands astride Battery Hill, overlooking the beautiful town of Oban.

First erected in 1897 by the Scottish banker John Stuart McCaig to cherish the memory of himself and family.

Construction stopped when McCaig died in 1902 and his family challenged his will for further lavish building plans including a tower and statutes of himself and family members; it would seem they’d more practical plans for his money.

Fast forward 120 years and we still have follies albeit on grander scales.

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is a classic example of what happens when an ego goes unchecked and has no boundaries.

Musk bought Twitter for $44bn. The business had posted losses for seven out of the last nine years.

Musk says Twitter is losing $4m each day which probably explains why he’d previously tried, unsuccessfully, to get out of the deal to buy the company. It can’t be worth what he paid for it.

It’s reported that Twitter has almost a quarter of a billion users.

To make that business a success based on subscriptions – Musk has now rolled out “Blue Twitter” at $8 a month – you would need one in four users to take out a subscription without advertising.

Leaving aside the fact a lot of users are “bots” – a social media Twitter account controlled by computer software that generates its own content – generating such a high level of subscriptions seems impossible.

YouTube has 2.6bn users with 80 million subscribers – that’s three out of every 100 users who are prepared to subscribe.

Add to this the fact Musk has spooked a lot of his big corporate advertisers including General Motors, Audi, United Airlines, Volkswagen and Eli Lilly, the big pharma company.

The American news channel CBS News suspended its use of Twitter over the weekend explaining: “In light of the uncertainty around Twitter and out of an abundance of caution, CBS News is pausing its activity on the social media site as it continues to monitor the platform.”

Over the weekend Elon Musk launched an online Twitter poll on whether to reinstate former president Donald Trump to the social media site.

With 15m votes cast it was 52% for reinstatement, with 48% against. An eerie echo to the disastrous UK Brexit voting result back in 2016.

Musk tweeted that “134m people have seen this poll”. He likes big numbers.

Yet, this was simply impressions and will likely include many of the same people (and bots) coming back again and again to check the voting tally.

Yesterday Musk tweeted: “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”

The translation of this Latin phrase is “the voice of the people is the voice of God”. Now, there’s an ego out of control.

We have no idea how many of those “people” were “bots”. More worrying is the idea of deciding things by random populism.

You can take the view this is Musk’s company and he can do what he likes. We are free to leave or stay.

Of course, the finance deal was funded personally by Musk but also by a wide range of big financial investors, let the buyer beware might be a concept those investors are acquainted with soon.

For all of Elon Musk’s lip service to freedom of speech and democracy, is his big idea really to reinstate Donald Trump?

The very same Trump who repeatedly refused to accept the democratic US presidential vote in 2020.

The guy who falsely claimed the election had been “stolen” from him as he whipped up an angry mob on Capitol Hill.

Trump is the only US president to have been impeached twice, latterly by the House of Representatives for the insurrection on Capitol Hill in Washington DC last year.

Trump is reminiscent of O Henry’s 1904 novel, Cabbages and Kings. A collection of stories set in the fictional banana republic of Anchuria – the book coined the term “banana republic”.

Trump has indulged in more hair-brained follies than most people on the planet combined. His ego matches Musk.

A return to hate filled Trumpism on social media might be the move that undoes Twitter. It goes against Musk’s ambition for transparency and Twitter being the best place for accurate information.

Post-truth Trumpism combined with posing as anyone by paying eight bucks a month for a blue tick is a marriage made in heaven.