Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter"Zo� Schiffer has written the definitive book on perhaps the weirdest business story of our time. A fast-paced and riveting account of a hilarious and tragic mess." — Matt Levine, Bloomberg Opinion “Money Stuff” columnist “the bird is freed” - Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022 When Elon Musk took over Twitter, commentators were rooting for the visionary behind Tesla and SpaceX to succeed. Here was a tough leader who could grab back power from Twitter’s entitled workforce, motivate them to get “extremely hardcore,” and supercharge Twitter’s profit and potential. And it was all out of the goodness of his own heart, rooted in his fervent belief in the necessity of making Twitter friendlier to free speech. "I didn’t do it to make more money,” Musk said. “I did it to try and help humanity, whom I love.” � Once Musk charged into the Twitter headquarters, the command-and-control playbook Musk honed at Tesla and SpaceX went off the rails immediately. Distilling hundreds of hours of interviews with more than sixty employees, thousands of pages of internal documents, Slack messages, presentations, as well as court filings and congressional testimony,�Extremely Hardcore�is the true story of how Musk reshaped the world’s online public square into his own personal megaphone.�� You’ll hear from employees who witnessed the destruction of their workplace in real-time, seeing years of progress to fight disinformation and hate speech wiped out within a matter of months. There’s the machine-learning savant who went all-in on Twitter 2.0 before getting betrayed by his new CEO, the father whose need for healthcare swept him into Musk’s inner circle, the trust and safety expert who became the subject of a harassment campaign his former boss incited, and the many other employees who tried to save the company from their new boss’s worst instincts. This is the story of Twitter, but it’s also a chronicle of the post-pandemic labor movement, a war between executives and a workforce newly awakened to their rights and needs.� Riveting, character-driven, and filled with jaw-dropping revelations,�Extremely Hardcore�is the definitive, fly-on-the-wall story of how Elon Musk lit $44 billion on fire and burned down Twitter. It’s the next best thing to being there, and you won’t have to sleep in the Twitter office to get the scoop. |
Contents
Benevolent Anarchy | 2 |
Little Tentacles | 3 |
Be There Will Be Wild | 4 |
Woke Mind Virus | 5 |
Welcome Elon | 6 |
Midas Touch | 14 |
Back Door Man | 17 |
I Made an Offer | 9 |
Assassination Coordinates | 2018 |
Epic Shit | 2020 |
This Explains a Lot | 2021 |
Deep Cuts | 2025 |
We Just Wont Pay Those | 2028 |
An Absolute Scam | 2033 |
TwitterDown | 2036 |
Part III | 2040 |
Id Jump on a Grande for You | 10 |
Lets See What This Guy Can Do 12 Temporarily on Hold | 11 |
Why Were Here | 13 |
HideandSeek | 14 |
Some Things Are Priceless | 15 |
Let That Sink In | 4 |
I Understand How Computers Work | 17 |
Content Moderation Is a Product | 18 |
The Bird Is Freed | 19 |
We Truly Cobbled It Together | 20 |
Comedy Is Now Legal on Twitter | 21 |
Please Print | 22 |
I Bet My Emergency Is Bigger Than Yours | 23 |
Should I Post It? | 24 |
SleepWhere YouWork | 25 |
Maniacal Urgency | 26 |
Uncertain Times | 20 |
Your Role at Twitter | 22 |
Weak Lazy Unmotivated | 29 |
New Blue Coming Soon | 29 |
The Economic Picture Ahead | 31 |
Elon Puts Rockets into Space Hes Not Afraid of the FTC | 32 |
Resignation Accepted | 33 |
High Risk | 34 |
How It StartedHow Its Going | 35 |
Extremely Hardcore | 26 |
Vox Populi Vox Dei | 32 |
Our Concerns Regarding the Quality of Your Coding Ability | 32 |
Exceptionally Poor Taste | 39 |
This Will Be Awesome | 2007 |
MAIN CHARACTER | 2041 |
VIP Users | 40 |
What the Fuck Is Going on with the App | 50 |
Engagement Night | 51 |
These People Are Pillaging | 52 |
Caught RedHanded | 53 |
Im Not Going to Bullshit You | 54 |
Official Company Communication | 54 |
A Recently Fired Twitter Employee | 56 |
Good Thing I Fired Him | 57 |
Inverse Startup | 58 |
Youre Welcome Namaste | 59 |
Try It but Dont Trust | 60 |
Did Your Brain Fall Out of Your Head? | 62 |
I Need to Do Some Deleting | 62 |
The Same Rules Rewards | 62 |
Every Parent Should Watch This | 64 |
Someone Foolish Enough to Take the Job | 68 |
Serious Numbers | 73 |
Sorry You Are Rate Limited | 76 |
Im Up for a Cage Match | 80 |
We Shall Bid Adieu to the Twitter Brand and Gradually All the Birds 70 I Wish I Had Been More Worried | 69 |
The Stakes | 71 |
Zero Sum | 72 |
Conclusion | |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | |
NOTES | |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | |
Part II | |
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