Tech's tumultuous past week has brought the grand visions and moonshot dreams of many of its celebrity leaders back down to earth.

Driving the news: The implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange FTX brought an overnight end to its young founder's "maximize wealth, give it all away" life plan based on "effective altruism" thinking.

• Elon Musk's roadmap for renovating Twitter's "global town square" on a free-speech foundation — with the eventual aim of turning it into an "everything app" that's also "the most accurate source of information about the world" — has taken the billionaire over a cliff.
• Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse dream faces new reality checks after Meta laid off 13% of its workforce as its finances stagnate and the public has yet to embrace the social network's virtual-reality future.

Between the lines: Each of these projects has faced unique setbacks, but they have one obstacle in common — resistance from users.

• Although FTX's financial and accounting irregularities are just beginning to come to light, the crypto trading exchange was initially brought down last week by a classic run — as hordes of its customers tried to withdraw their assets at once.
• Musk's impulsive effort to revamp Twitter's verification system (see our next item) encountered a wave of challenges from users who demonstrated all the different kinds of mischief and fraud his changes could enable.
• Zuckerberg's metaverse project remains in an uphill fight just to get users in the door of its flagship environment, Horizon Worlds.

"Moonshot" projects are big, long-term bets with inspiringly audacious goals.

• They're understood to be risky, and they're most in peril at moments — like right now — when the financial tide goes out.
• Tech leader use them to capture the public imagination while inspiring employees' effort and creativity.

How it works: Every moonshot comes garlanded with grandiose rhetoric.

Bankman-Fried has told legions of interviewers that the $26 billion fortune he'd amassed at its peak would all be plowed into long-term projects for the betterment of humanity.

• "Maximizing the total happiness of the future—that’s SBF’s ultimate goal. FTX is just a means to that end," one journalist explained (in a now-deleted profile on the website for Sequoia Capital, one of FTX's investors).

Musk has repeatedly said that making Twitter "maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization."

• Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, endorsing Musk's plan, tweeted that he trusts Musk's "mission to extend the light of consciousness."

Zuckerberg pitches the metaverse as the next level of human connection, "a persistent, synchronous environment where we can be together" that is "the holy grail of social interactions."

Yes, but: A cynical eye on these claims would view them as efforts to paper over troubled businesses with bold handwaves.

• Even with a more generous view — that these leaders believe in their wide-eyed visions — the CEOs just look like they've drunk their own Kool-Aid.
• That should always be a red flag for users, partners and investors.

What's next: In the past, tech companies often ran moonshots as side projects. But today these bold projects have become all-in, bet-the-company moves — making losses catastrophic.

• FTX is kaput, and Bankman-Fried could face a mountain of fraud charges.
• Musk's Twitter makeover is a turbulent work-in-progress, but moves like picking fights with U.S. senators and apparently downgrading content that mocks him won't bolster confidence.
• Zuckerberg controls Meta's voting stock and can effectively do whatever he wants. Of these three moonshots, his is the one with the longest likely runway.

Twitter suspended signups on Friday for the revamped subscription service it had launched days earlier, after a wave of customers used the plan’s verified-checkmark feature for fraudulent pranks.

Driving the news: The company made no announcement of the change — it no longer has a comms team — but Elon Musk replied to a Twitter user's question on Saturday that signups would resume "probably end of next week."

The big picture: The $8-a-month subscription plan has been Musk's top priority since he took control of Twitter.

• Giving every paid user a blue checkmark was the plan's chief innovation, replacing the existing program, which Musk called "bulls---" and "a lords & peasants system."

Yes, but: For a decade the checkmarks have signaled that an account — usually belonging to political leaders, celebrities, journalists and other public figures or brands — is who it says it is.

Before the subscription plan launched, Musk — apparently miffed by users, including comedian Kathy Griffin, who had changed their profile name and photo to match his — had declared a ban on impersonation, except when explicitly labeled as parody.

• Twitter veterans noted that such behavior was precisely what the old-style blue checkmarks — which Twitter only granted after review — aimed to prevent, and the new plan would enable.

Indeed, the moment users got access to a blue check for $8, some altered their profiles to pretend to be big companies, public figures, and Musk himself.

• A user claiming to be Eli Lilly tweeted that insulin was now free. The message was eventually deleted, but the company's stock took a hit anyway.
• Others posted as Coca-Cola, Nintendo (with Mario raising a middle finger), and a variety of other brands, sports figures, politicians and celebrities.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Twitter had turned on a new gray "official account" checkmark.

• But within hours, Musk tweeted "I just killed it....Blue check will be the great leveler."
• On Friday, some gray checks began to reappear.

The checkmark mess stuck Musk in a loop of whim —> decision —> tweet, creating a widening gyre of confusion.

Between the lines: In the cat-and-mouse game of managing user-generated content online, users will always outnumber enforcers.

• A big platform like Twitter needs an army of moderators — but Musk has just laid off half the company.
• Over the weekend, he also cut loose contractors, reportedly by the thousands, many employed in content moderation work.

Our thought bubble: Big platforms typically roll out major changes slowly, testing them on small slices of users to learn how they react, because they can never be sure how millions of users will behave.

• Musk took a crash approach — he reportedly told engineers to ship the new subscription plan in a week or they'd be fired. He courted chaos, and found it.

Elon Musk-owned SpaceX has made a big advertising purchase on Musk-owned Twitter, CNBC reported Sunday.

The big picture: A number of major advertisers have paused their purchases on the service since Musk took over.

• Some rights groups have urged a boycott of Twitter, pointing to reported rises in hate speech and misinformation there.

Between the lines: Musk is known for entangling the operations and finances of the companies he owns.

On Tap

• A shareholder lawsuit over Elon Musk's Tesla pay package goes to trial in Delaware this week — under the same judge who presided over the recent showdown between Musk and Twitter. (Wall Street Journal)

Trading Places

• Satellite data firm Planet has added former Splunk chief people officer Kristen Robinson to its board of directors.

ICYMI

• Meta is killing off its Portal line of video-chat devices along with its smartwatch business as part of broader cutbacks. (Reuters)

Regardless of how you feel about robot dogs, I think we can all feel good about a real dog taking down a robot.