Scoop: New book to reveal "what really happened when Musk showed up" at Twitter

The $44 billion purchase by one of the world's richest men captivated media and tech as he shook the company with layoffs and stunning changes to the platform.

Axios

2025 book five: Kate Conger & Ryan Mac: Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#bookstodon #bookstagram #fiction #2025books #books #nonfiction #twitter #elonmusk #characterLimit #audiobook #kateconger #ryanmac

How Musk Destroyed Twttr, by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac:

"Musk was [concerned about] AI that could destroy humanity. During a 2014 dinner at his Palo Alto mansion, Zuckerberg urged Musk to stop railing about the potential dangers of AI at speaking engagements and [online]. It was all nonsense, Zuckerberg believed. Musk, enraged, refused to back down."

(From Chapter 3, included in the free 70-page ebook sample)

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/457928/character-limit-by-mac-kate-conger-and-ryan/9781529914696

via https://hidde.blog/2024-review/ by @hdv

#ElonMusk #KateConger

Character Limit

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2024 'The abiding question posed by Character Limit is this: is Elon Musk secretly 13 years old?' Private Eye '[Conger and Mac are] scoop magnets . . . A dramatic, fly-on-the-wall narrative . . . offers insights into how Musk might approach his job helping to run Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency' New York Times 'A deeply reported, revealing and slightly terrifying book that is considerably subtler than its subtitle' Janine Gibson, Financial Times 'You couldn’t hope for a better ringside seat on the unfolding drama. . . As a retelling of exactly what happened and what it felt like to be there, it is a triumph’ Guardian 'The definitive account of how the world’s richest man, in a fit of unbridled vanity and arrogance, took over and destroyed our digital town square' John Carreyrou, bestselling author of Bad Blood 'An absorbing account of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. It covers the big themes of modern politics – unrestrained billionaires and the lawyers, bankers and other yes-men who enable them; how social media has degraded the public square and melted the brains of its most enthusiastic users; and the eternal quest to find the border between free speech and hate speech.’ New Statesmen ‘Astonishing. Kate Conger and Ryan Mac’s meticulous, comprehensive reporting turns an opaque mess brutally transparent’ Jia Tolentino, bestselling author of Trick Mirror ‘Gripping… Through fly-on-the-wall reporting, Character Limit takes readers inside Elon Musk's tumultuous Twitter takeover and the disruption of a company, an industry, and the online public square. What a wild ride' Bradley Hope, bestselling author of Billion Dollar Whale In a world of viral ideas and emotion, who gets to control the narrative, who gets to be heard, and what does power really cost? This is the story of the showdown between Elon Musk and Twitter and how the richest man on earth suddenly came to control one of the most powerful media platforms in the world. In Character Limit, award-winning reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac draw on exclusive interviews, unreported documents and internal Twitter recordings to provide a revelatory, three-dimensional, and definitive account of what really happened when Musk showed up to takeover Twitter, spoiling for a brawl and intent on revolution, with his merciless, sycophantic cadre of lawyers, investors, and bankers. In part, this is the story of Twitter's founder, Jack Dorsey, who idealistically dreamed of building a 'digital town square' but detested Wall Street and never built a profitable business, and Musk, one of the site's most influential users with over 70 million followers. To Musk, Twitter—once known for its almost absolute commitment to free speech—had utterly lost its way. Blaming it for the proliferation of what he called the “woke mind virus”, he claimed that the survival of humanity itself depended on the future of the site. In January 2022, Musk began secretly accumulating Twitter stock. By April, he was its largest shareholder, and, soon after, he made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company for the unimaginable sum of $44 billion. Backed into a corner, Twitter’s board accepted his offer—only for Musk to change his mind, forcing Twitter to sue him. Drawing on unparalleled sources, this is the defining story of our time told in vivid, cinematic detail.

Weekly output: Boost Mobile, AI at BT, digital privacy, Elon Musk’s X agenda, Salt Typhoon breaches T-Mobile

I have more than enough practice at traveling to the other side of the Atlantic, but this week’s trip to Lisbon for Web Summit had me sandbagged by jet lag almost every night. It appears that I never got my head into Western European Time, to judge from my not feeling wiped out in a “do not operate heavy machinery” way after I got home Friday night.

11/11/2024: Boost Mobile Touts 5G Network Progress, Adds Sub-$100 5G Phone to Lineup, PCMag

The advance copies of Boost’s PR materials were vague about some key points, but the carrier’s press rep did get back to me to clarify that the $10 billion network-buildout expense shared in them was a total estimate, not a forecast of costs to come.

11/12/2024: Will Gen AI generate value for the corporate landscape?, Web Summit

My first panel at this conference had me interviewing Alex Bell, BT’s digital director of service, and Michael Park, a senior vice president and global head of AI go-to-market at ServiceNow, about how the former company had enlisted the latter to put AI to work in some important IT and customer-service systems.

11/12/2024: Secure swipe: protecting customer data, Web Summit

My second and final panel–fewer than I usually field at this conference–put me on stage with Brittany Kaiser, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower turned Own Your Data advocate, and Marcus Räder, founder and CEO of the lodging-services firm Hostaway, to discuss how companies collect and keep data and how they would be better off not hoarding so much customer information.

11/14/2024: ‘Things Are Different for Elon’: Who Needs X When You Have Political Power?, PCMag

I only wrote up one Web Summit panel for PCMag, but it was a very good one: New York Times reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac talking about Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter. They went beyond their recount of that in their book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter to discuss our new oligarch-in-chief’s privileged perch in Donald Trump’s circles.

11/16/2024: Chinese State-Sponsored ‘Salt Typhoon’ Hackers Also Breached T-Mobile, PCMag

I usually try to avoid writing posts on the weekend, but a) this was news that had gone uncovered at my client and b) I had written less than usual over the rest of the week and c) I have bills coming that aren’t going to pay themselves.

#AI #BoostMobile #BrittanyKaiser #BT #ChineseHackers #ElonMuskTwitter #KateConger #Lisbon #oligarch #RyanMac #SaltTyphoon #TMobile #WebSummit

Web Summit – Rob Pegoraro

Posts about Web Summit written by robpegoraro

Rob Pegoraro
“Very FEARFUL Environment Around [Elon Musk]” Mehdi Speaks to Authors of New Book 'Character Limit'

"[Elon Musk] is now more powerful than ever before, and I think he knows that.”Authors Ryan Mac and Kate Conger joins ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ to discuss their new...

YouTube

As for the #Musk half of the plot line in Act I: well, I am not going to comment on that.

Instead, I'll comment on the quality of writing by #KateConger and #RyanMac. It is perfect: well paced, direct quotes that help you get in the head of the people involved, incisive punch lines to underscore important insights.

Most importantly, it is amazingly well researched. Even knowing that hundreds of hours of interviews with hundreds of people went into it, I can only marvel at the level of detail.

- YouTube

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