As a long time Twitter user but an increasingly unhappy account holder on X, this background story to the Musk takeover appealed as soon as I’d heard about it. The book did not let me down.
The two authors, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, have done some great background interview work. The research layers insight from various perspectives onto what is an absolute clusterfuck story about one man’s narcissistic compulsion destroying a global brand and much-loved service.
When it is all laid out chronologically, the sequence of missteps, miscalculations, misjudgments and mistakes is truly breathtaking. Musk is clearly a genius in his own way; the achievements of SpaceX and Tesla are inarguable, and without his input and drive they almost certainly wouldn’t be as successful. But this book demonstrates that his peculiar and unique set of talents are wholly unsuited to running a social media company.
At the heart of the book is the thesis that he only really wanted control of Twitter as his ego could not resist trying to pimp the megaphone it provided him. And that even before he had closed the deal he recognised that he had made an enormous mistake, but that same ego prevented him from pulling out.
But even taking account of his thin-skinned and cult-like self-centredness, the sheer stupidity and selfishness of his product decision making is breath taking. Such as the time he demanded the entire machine learning algorithmic system for detecting child abuse imagery was switched off purely because it flagged a SpaceX image in a false positive error.
Also eye-opening is the incredible lack of foresight, planning, process and structure that he brings to Twitter. Everything is knee jerk, every decision has to go before him, he can’t stomach any criticism from employees whatsoever.
My rapidly evaporating puddle of respect for Musk has plummeted further still.
Character limit indeed.
