Book Report: 'Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History'

Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History by Ben Mezrich

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The thesis of the book goes that as Elon broke Twitter, it ended up breaking him. Delving into the corporate room-where-it-happened intrigue with the gusto he showed in Dumb Money, Ben Mezrich sifts through the flaming mess that transformed Twitter into X while painting a portrait of a mad king who loses his guardrails and spirals into mass corporate culture destruction.

Ripping through rumors and innuendo by verifying facts with those in the know, Mezrich constructs a fevered narrative. Employees who felt as though they've made it have their livelihoods ripped away at Musk's cost-cutting whims. Some seize opportunities that arise from the chaos and become Musk darlings as their bosses are rendered obsolete.

Although the book is indeed a nasty hit piece on Musk, it also dollops sympathy upon the antihero. A sketch of a Musk who faces humiliation at a comedy standup show, as well as a poll about whether he should step down as CEO backfiring, paints a master of the universe constantly swinging at insecurities that tower over even his monstrous wealth. No matter how rich or powerful he may be, Musk appears to be a little boy lost, struggling for fleeting self-affirmation with his latest bag of toys.

At large, the book is an elegy for the Twitter heyday. It took me back to the platform's early days, when it allowed me to develop a cadre of fast-moving, going-places friends and associates. It allowed me to overshare, connect with celebrities, go viral, amass followers and beam with satisfaction when I received the fabled blue check. And of course, it allowed me to relive the sting of having not only the check taken away at Musk's whim, but watching the community implode and dissipate.

Twitter may be broken, and so may be Elon, but both will no doubt continue to make lasting impacts in their new, bizarre forms. The book, then, is something of a preamble. Act two should be a doozy.





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