Sunday, January 29, 2023

The inside story of Musk's Twitter takeover (and take-down)

I have written the occasional entry about Twitter in the age of Elon Musk's ownership (I don't like Twitter and I don't like Musk, so you can imagine the tenor of most of these entries). But the Guardian has just shared an article entitled "Tears Blunders and Chaos: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter", detailing the early days of "Twitter 2.0" in all its Technicolor horror. 

I'm not going to repeat it all here but, suffice to say, it makes for compelling reading. From the mass sackings to Musk's own off-hand and off-colour tweets to panicked employee reactions to the third-party corporate backlash, it's all here in gory detail. 

Just one short quote from the article, maybe: "How smart could he really be, the guy who purchased a company for far more than it was worth, then drove what remained of it into the ground?" Maybe one more: "His imperiousness in the middle of a session he appeared to be botching was something to behold." You get the idea. Now, read the article (and cancel your Twitter account).

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