Lora Templeton's Reviews > Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter

When the events in this book were unfolding, I mostly followed them through Schiffer's blogs and articles on Platformer. To some degree, this book is reliving that drip-feed of real time news in an all at once deluge. But there is also room to breathe now and to marvel at the amount of corporate damage Musk achieved in a scant year. From October 2022 to October 2023, Musk and then Musk and Yaccarino took a company, its employees, advertisers, and customers through every level of ineptitude — and in the case of two Trust and Safety team members, actual physical danger — that only overweening hubris coupled with novice-level tech expertise can achieve. It is truly breathtaking and I can only imagine that the GOP laments that Musk cannot be their Presidential candidate.

The book doesn’t answer - perhaps no one can - if the whole business was a colossal blunder. A shitpost with an arbitrary figure named turned into an offer that the Twitter Board had a fiduciary duty to accept. But Schiffer provides more detail leading to that moment that suggests Musk was intent on doing Twitter harm in some fashion.

The story of Randall Lin, which was not covered in real time, is especially sobering and feels like something that would happen in a Stalinist regime. And, apparently, in an American corporation.