From alarming questions on Elon Musk’s position in Ukraine’s war effort, to new particulars about his sophisticated private life, there was no scarcity of bombshells from Walter Isaacson’s lately launched biography of Elon Musk.
The ebook covers his childhood in South Africa, in addition to his enterprise dealings, from his first startup to Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink. Maybe unsurprisingly, greater than 1 / 4 of the ebook is dedicated to Twitter.
Isaacson spent two years with Musk and thus had a front-row seat to his takeover of Twitter, starting together with his transfer to turn into a significant stakeholder last spring. Whereas a lot of the drama that unfolded at Twitter (now, X) over the past yr and half has been well-documented, Isaacson’s account provides telling — and at occasions weird — new particulars about the way it all went down.
Musk nearly instantly regretted his determination to purchase Twitter
Isaacson describes Musk’s preliminary bid to purchase Twitter as impulsive — the results of one among his frequent “manic” moods. And he writes that Musk regretted the plan nearly instantly after the deal was put in movement — each as a result of he thought he was overpaying, and since he was so unimpressed with Twitter’s former management. Musk later admits, greater than as soon as, that he purchased the corporate as a result of he didn’t have a selection.
“I don’t know why I did it,” he says two weeks after the deal lastly closed. “The decide mainly stated that I’ve to purchase Twitter or else, and now I’m like, okay, shit.”
The principle motivation for growing Twitter Blue subscriptions
We already know that Musk needs to bring banking and funds options to X, however the ebook makes it clear that these ambitions are very a lot intertwined together with his push for Twitter Blue (now referred to as X Premium) subscriptions. Isaacson writes that Musk was so centered on Twitter Blue as a result of he noticed it as a technique to “get a consumer’s bank card info into the system, enabling Twitter sometime to turn into the broader financial-services and funds platform.”
Nonetheless, the plan was considerably derailed by Apple, as most of Twitter’s subscribers signed up through its iPhone app, and Apple doesn’t share consumer knowledge, like bank card and different monetary particulars, with app makers. Extremely, upon studying of this, Musk instructed Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of belief and security, to “simply name Apple and inform them to provide the knowledge you want.” Roth, realizing that such a request wouldn’t go over nicely with Apple, declined to make the decision.
Musk would later meet with Tim Cook amid a separate dispute associated to Twitter’s iOS app, however, in keeping with Isaacson, Musk opted to not carry up the consumer knowledge concern. But it surely underscores simply how necessary monetary knowledge is to his imaginative and prescient to make X an “every thing app.”
Musk tried to ban the ADL and different activists in 2022
Musk usually portrays himself as a noble defender of free speech, however even a sympathetic biographer is fast to level out all of the methods Musk put his pursuits forward of free speech after buying Twitter.
Months earlier than Musk would boost the #BanTheADL hashtag, he wished to ban the group and different activists for urging advertisers to boycott the platform, Isaacson writes. Musk apparently went to Yoel Roth, twitter’s former head of belief and security, and demanded he “cease customers from urging advertisers to boycott Twitter.”
Musk then tried to advert lib a brand new coverage to justify what would have been an unprecedented ban. “I’m altering Twitter coverage proper now … blackmail is prohibited as of proper now. Ban it. Ban them,” Musk stated. Roth deflected and Musk apparently dropped the difficulty.
Musk flip-flopped on whether or not to revive Donald Trump’s account
Regardless of joking to his sons that he was shopping for Twitter to assist Trump get reelected, Musk is not any fan of Trump, in keeping with Isaacson.
“I wish to keep away from the bullshit disputes about Trump,” Musk had instructed me a couple of weeks earlier, emphasizing that his precept had all the time been to permit free speech provided that it was throughout the bounds of the legislation. “If he’s engaged in legal exercise — and it appears more and more that he has — that’s not okay,” Musk stated. “It’s not free speech to subvert democracy.”
Musk, in fact, would change his thoughts and resolve {that a} Twitter poll was a greater technique to resolve the difficulty. Isaacson doesn’t speculate on a motive for the reversal aside from saying he was in a “feisty temper” that day.
How the “hardcore Twitter” pledge took place
Within the a number of weeks following his chaotic takeover of Twitter, Musk laid off hundreds of Twitter employees. Isaacson sheds new mild on how these selections have been made, writing that Musk tapped his two first cousins and their shut buddy — all of whom labored at Musk’s different corporations — to assist him determine who needs to be lower.
Round this time, one of many extra notorious tales to come back out of Twitter was an internet type despatched to the remaining staffers, giving them two days to decide to the brand new “hardcore” model of the corporate. Based on Isaacson, the shape was impressed by one among Musk’s cousins, who after digging by way of Twitter workers’ public Slack messages, “advised to Musk that he give workers the prospect to choose out.” Musk later determined to make the shape opt-in, moderately than opt-out. “We would like individuals who declare they’re hardcore.”
What actually occurred to Twitter’s servers
Final December, Musk determined to maneuver hundreds of Twitter servers from a knowledge heart in Sacremento to a facility in Oregon with a purpose to get monetary savings. However when Twitter engineers stated the transfer would take at the least six months, Musk grew indignant, saying he felt just like the “head-explosion emoji.”
Then, two days earlier than Christmas, Musk made an impromptu go to to the Sacramento facility and declared transferring the servers didn’t “appear tremendous laborious.” By the subsequent day, Christmas Eve, Musk had tapped his cousins and others to start out the transfer. The group started rolling the two,500-pound server racks, which contained “completely important knowledge” onto a Oregon-bound transferring truck. Twitter’s guidelines required servers with consumer knowledge to be wiped earlier than such a transfer, however Musk opted to make use of Apple AirTags and store-bought padlocks to safe them as an alternative.
In the end, all the servers have been relocated inside weeks, moderately than the a number of months the corporate’s engineers initially estimated. However the transfer additionally brought about months of instability inside Twitter’s methods. This resulted in various points, together with a disastrous reside stream with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was nearly unable to announce his presidential bid.
The hasty transfer has additionally attracted the scrutiny of the FTC, which is investigating X over various privateness and knowledge associated points. Lately revealed court documents refer on to the incident for example of the corporate failing to comply with its personal safety insurance policies.
Musk’s obsession with a cellular technique recreation referred to as Polytopia
The ebook is stuffed with particulars about Musk’s private relationships. However one of many weirder particulars is his long-running obsession with a cellular technique recreation referred to as The Battle of Polytopia that lots of his confidantes say is essential to understanding him. Musk is outwardly so hooked on the sport that at one level within the narrative he skips a gathering with Tesla managers so he can preserve enjoying.
Musk is so obsessed that he’s roped a lot of his inside circle, together with Grimes, his brother Kimbal and Shivon Zilis, the Neuralink govt with whom he has twins, into enjoying as nicely. All of them finally deleted the sport, together with his brother Kimbal saying it was “destroying” his marriage. Musk, alternatively, deleted the app from his cellphone however, a pair months later, opted to maintain enjoying.
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