Character Limit - BookWyrm

Published 2024 by Penguin Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-65614-3

(1 review)

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 …

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?

1 edition

David Colborne reviewed Character Limit

They told it to Earth

4 stars

"Character Limit" is an in-depth look into how and why Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X), along with what he did with and to the social network afterwards.

The first half of the book does an excellent job detailing the state of Twitter before Musk's buyout — its ethos under Dorsey, its struggles to grow and turn a reliable profit, its inability to innovate past its original 140-character product, and its sprawling multinational moderation team. The book then goes on to detail the choices Twitter's board faced when Musk offered to buy the company, including their legal responsibility to maximize shareholder value — and how that responsibility overrode any loyalty to the original mission of Twitter. The remainder of the book then details Musk's early reign at Twitter, including a neverending cascade of layoffs, declining advertising revenue, and increasingly erratic behavior from the company's poaster-in-chief.

The book is well structured …

"Character Limit" is an in-depth look into how and why Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X), along with what he did with and to the social network afterwards.

The first half of the book does an excellent job detailing the state of Twitter before Musk's buyout — its ethos under Dorsey, its struggles to grow and turn a reliable profit, its inability to innovate past its original 140-character product, and its sprawling multinational moderation team. The book then goes on to detail the choices Twitter's board faced when Musk offered to buy the company, including their legal responsibility to maximize shareholder value — and how that responsibility overrode any loyalty to the original mission of Twitter. The remainder of the book then details Musk's early reign at Twitter, including a neverending cascade of layoffs, declining advertising revenue, and increasingly erratic behavior from the company's poaster-in-chief.

The book is well structured and tells its story well. The authors do an excellent job of describing the events that led to the buyout of Twitter and Musk's subsequent behavior.

Even so, I liked this book more than I loved it. Since the book came out before Trump's reelection, it leaves the story at the nadir of Twitter/X's influence — and consequently misses Musk's reemergence (and likely subsequent fall). The book consequently prematurely dances on Musk's and X's grave.

I hope the authors consider writing a sequel.