Kindle, 464 pages
English language
Published Sept. 19, 2024 by Penguin.
Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews
“Riveting . . . Character Limit offers a telling lesson in the cost of getting everything you want.” —The Washington Post
“You couldn’t hope for a better ringside seat on the unfolding drama . . . [Character Limit] is a triumph.” —The Guardian
“Masterful in how it paints a picture and puts you in the room with the famous entrepreneur . . . Character Limit is a page turner.” —Forbes
Rising star New York Times technology reporters, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk’s unprecedented takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal’s seismic political, social, and financial fallout
The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in …
Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews
“Riveting . . . Character Limit offers a telling lesson in the cost of getting everything you want.” —The Washington Post
“You couldn’t hope for a better ringside seat on the unfolding drama . . . [Character Limit] is a triumph.” —The Guardian
“Masterful in how it paints a picture and puts you in the room with the famous entrepreneur . . . Character Limit is a page turner.” —Forbes
Rising star New York Times technology reporters, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk’s unprecedented takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal’s seismic political, social, and financial fallout
The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before. While its founder had idealistically dreamed of building a "digital town square," he detested Wall Street and never focused on building a profitable business.
Musk joined the platform in 2010 and, by 2022, had become one of the site’s most influential users, hooking over 80 million followers with a mix of provocations, promotion of his companies, and attacks on his enemies. To Musk, Twitter — once known for its almost absolute commitment to free speech — had badly lost its way. He blamed it for the proliferation of what he called the “woke mind virus” and claimed that the survival of democracy and the human race itself depended on the future of the site. In January of 2022, Musk began secretly accumulating Twitter stock. By April, he was its largest shareholder, and soon after, made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company for the unimaginable sum of $44 billion dollars. Backed into a corner, Twitter’s board accepted his offer—but Musk quickly changed his mind, forcing Twitter to sue him to close the deal in October. The richest man on earth controlled one of the most powerful media platforms in the world—but at what price? Before long Twitter would be gone for good, replaced by something radically different, as Musk remade the company in his own image from the ground up.
The story of the showdown between Musk and Twitter and his eventual takeover of the company is unlike anything in business or media that has come before. In vivid, cinematic detail, Conger and Mac follow the inner workings of the company as Musk lays siege to it, first from the outside as one of its most vocal users, and then finally from within as a contentious and mercurial leader. Musk has shared some of his version of events, but Conger and Mac have uncovered the full story through exclusive interviews, unreported documents, and internal recordings at Twitter following the billionaire’s takeover. With unparalleled sources from within and around the company, they provide a revelatory, three-dimensional, and definitive account of what really happened when Musk showed up, spoiling for a brawl and intent on revolution, with his merciless, sycophantic cadre of lawyers, investors, and bankers.
This is the defining story of our time told with uncommon style and peerless rigor. 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?
Fascinating account of the Twitter debacle a couple of years ago. Learning more about what actually went on behind the scenes was equal parts illuminating and enraging. Definitely worth a read!
Reading Character Limit is like watching a man repeatedly punch himself in the face and then blame the people around him for his nose hurting. It is an utterly embarrassing portrait of a narcissistic egotist who believes that he is a genius because he has often been lucky. Musk's purchase of Twitter was a tragedy, in both the literary and dramatic senses. Conger and Mac tell it gently with minimal editorial — why would they need to: these facts are absolutely the worst. RIP Twitter. I could not put this book down.
Reading Character Limit is like watching a man repeatedly punch himself in the face and then blame the people around him for his nose hurting. It is an utterly embarrassing portrait of a narcissistic egotist who believes that he is a genius because he has often been lucky. Musk's purchase of Twitter was a tragedy, in both the literary and dramatic senses. Conger and Mac tell it gently with minimal editorial — why would they need to: these facts are absolutely the worst. RIP Twitter. I could not put this book down.
In some ways this is a parallel companion piece to Nick Bilton’s Hatching Twitter, and the authors actively consulted that book while writing this one. I was expecting Musk to come off incredibly badly, and he does; I was not necessarily expecting the wider cast of sycophants and narcissists, up to and including the biographer Walter Isaacson. There’s no pretense of objectivity here - Musk’s associates are repeatedly referred to as “goons” - and in a way that’s a detraction. The unadorned facts themselves are already an indictment. But this is grippingly told - and takes on a new meaning given Musk’s involvement in the second Trump administration. Someone please stage an intervention.
