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Character Limit

How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
Brief Description
Rising star New York Times investigative tech reporters, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk's unprecedented hostile takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal's seismic political and financial fallout. The definitive account of how... Read More
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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Rising star New York Times investigative tech reporters, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk's unprecedented hostile takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal's seismic political and financial fallout.

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 β€” John Carreyrou, bestselling author of Bad Blood

Astonishing. Kate Conger and Ryan Mac's meticulous, comprehensive reporting turns an opaque mess brutally transparent β€” 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 β€” 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. Musk, one of the site's most influential users with over 70 million followers, saw Twitter as a platform that had lost its way. He blamed it for the proliferation of what he called the "woke mind virus" and 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 β€” 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.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529914702

Publisher: Cornerstone

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 19 September 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Cornerstone Press

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 36.0mm

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 232.0mm

Weight: 597g

Pages: 480

About the Author

Kate Conger is a technology reporter for the New York Times. She writes about X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, and its owner, Elon Musk. In more than a decade of covering the tech industry, she has written about the underground world of hackers, the use of artificial intelligence in autonomous weapons and labor uprisings in the gig economy. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ryan Mac is a Los Angeles-based technology reporter for the New York Times. He has spent more than a decade reporting on wealth and power in Silicon Valley, first on staff at Forbes, and then at BuzzFeed News, where he was a senior reporter. He led the outlet's deep reporting on Facebook, which garnered a 2019 Mirror Award and a 2021 George R. Polk Award.

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  • Character Limit
    β€œRiveting . . . Character Limit offers a telling lesson in the cost of getting everything you want.” β€”The Washington Post β€œYou couldn’t hope for a better ringside seat on the unfolding drama . . . Character Limit is a triumph.” β€”The Guardian β€œMasterful in how it paints a picture and puts you in the room with the famous entrepreneur...
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  • Character Limit
    β€œRiveting . . . Character Limit offers a telling lesson in the cost of getting everything you want.” β€”The Washington Post β€œYou couldn’t hope for a better ringside seat on the unfolding drama . . . Character Limit is a triumph.” β€”The Guardian β€œMasterful in how it paints a picture and puts you in the room with the famous entrepreneur...
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