 | |
| Authors | Kate Conger Ryan Mac |
|---|---|
| Subject | |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Published | September 17, 2024 |
| Publisher | Penguin Press |
| Pages | 480 |
| ISBN | 978-0593656136 (Hardcover) |
| OCLC | 1432234243 |
Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter is a 2024 book written by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac. It covers the controversial takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. [1] [2] [3] [4] Character Limit was published on September 17, 2024, by Penguin Press.
Character Limit chronicles the rise and fall of Twitter after Elon Musk's tumultuous $44-billion-dollar acquisition. The book showcases Musk's volatility, highlighting the actions that led to the company's drastic devaluation and the resurgence of unmoderated hate-speech, misinformation, and white nationalism on the platform. [5]
Conger and Mac detail the night Musk's Twitter acquisition was formalized in at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco. Twitter's San Francisco headquarters are two different buildings: a large building and a small building behind it which are connected via a bridge. On the night of October 26, 2022, there were "two separate worlds playing out on either side of the bridge" with Musk signing the acquisition documents with executives in the smaller building while Twitter employees in the larger building were crying at potentially losing their job. [6] Another detail in the book is how Musk had cut Twitter's janitorial staff, forcing Twitter employees to bring their own toilet paper to work. [6] [7]
Prior to its release, Character Limit was listed as one of Literary Hub 's most anticipated books of 2024. [8]
Kirkus Reviews praised the book as an "engrossing, precise account of Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter (now X). A compelling fusion of business history and worrisome social narrative". [1]
James Ball of The Guardian , in a positive review, wrote that Conger and Mac have the "astonishing ability to take the reader into almost every room that mattered during the contentious $44bn acquisition". [4]
Zack Ruskin of The Washington Post called Character Limit "riveting" and writes the book "offers a treasure trove of answers regarding Elon Musk's somewhat shadowy acquisition of the company, both in terms of the financials and his motivation." Ruskin said the book serves as a "telling lesson in the cost of getting everything you want". [5]
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and conservative political figure known for his key roles in the automotive company Tesla, Inc. and the space company SpaceX. He is also known for his ownership of X Corp., and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of January 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$426 billion.
Gary S. Gensler is an American government official and former investment banker who served as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 2021 to 2025. Gensler previously worked for Goldman Sachs and has led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Twitter, Inc. was an American social media company based in San Francisco, California, which operated and was named for its flagship social media network prior to its rebrand as X. In addition to Twitter, the company previously operated the Vine short video app and Periscope livestreaming service. In April 2023, Twitter merged with X Holdings and ceased to be an independent company, becoming a part of X Corp.
The history of Twitter, later known as X, can be traced back to a brainstorming session at Odeo.
Mastodon is an open source, self-hosted, social networking service. Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol for federation which allows users to communicate between independent Mastodon instances and other ActivityPub compatible services. Mastodon has microblogging features similar to Twitter, and is generally considered to be a part of the Fediverse.
Vijaya Gadde is an American attorney, who served as general counsel and the head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter. Her role included handling issues such as harassment, misinformation, and harmful speech, and other decisions made by Twitter. On October 27, 2022, she was fired by Elon Musk, following his acquisition of Twitter.
Twitter, now rebranded as X, has faced various criticisms over the years, particularly concerning content moderation, censorship, and platform management.
On July 15, 2020, between 20:00 and 22:00 UTC, 130 high-profile Twitter accounts were reportedly compromised by outside parties to promote a bitcoin scam. Twitter and other media sources confirmed that the perpetrators had gained access to Twitter's administrative tools so that they could alter the accounts themselves and post the tweets directly. They appeared to have used social engineering to gain access to the tools via Twitter employees. Three individuals were arrested by authorities on July 31, 2020, and charged with wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft, and unauthorized computer access related to the scam.
Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp., and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.
Parag Agrawal is an Indian-born American software engineer and businessman who was the CEO of Twitter, Inc. from November 2021 to October 2022.
Sriram Krishnan is an Indian-American venture capitalist, podcaster, product manager and author. He was a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. On December 22, 2024, US president-elect Donald Trump announced that he would be Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence in his incoming administration.
The business magnate Elon Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 27, 2022. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Twitter invited Musk to join its board of directors, an offer he initially accepted before declining. On April 14, Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company, to which Twitter's board responded with a "poison pill" strategy to resist a hostile takeover before unanimously accepting Musk's buyout offer of $44 billion on April 25. Musk stated that he planned to introduce new features to the platform, make its algorithms open-source, combat spambot accounts, and promote free speech, framing the acquisition as the cornerstone of X, an "everything app".
Ned Segal is an American business executive. He was the chief financial officer of Twitter from 2017 to 2022. He was fired, along with three other top executives, on October 27, 2022, following Elon Musk’s purchase of the company.
Ryan Mac is a Vietnamese-American writer and journalist who works for The New York Times. He has previously worked as a reporter at Buzzfeed News and Forbes. Mac was awarded the 2019 Mirror Award and the 2020 George Polk Award for his reporting on Facebook. He is the co-author of 2024's Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter.
Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022; Musk acted as CEO of Twitter until June 2023 when he was succeeded by Linda Yaccarino. In a move that, despite Yaccarino's accession, was widely attributed to Musk, Twitter was rebranded to X on July 23, 2023, and its domain name changed from twitter.com to x.com on May 17, 2024.
X Corp. is an American technology company headquartered in Bastrop, Texas. Established by Elon Musk in 2023 as the successor to Twitter, Inc., it is a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings Corp., which is itself mostly owned by Musk. The company owns the social networking service X, and has announced plans to use it as a base for other offerings. They also own the trademarks of services Vine and Periscope which were also previously owned by Twitter. While the official name of the company and social network is now X, many users and media outlets continue to refer to it as Twitter.
Linda Yaccarino is an American media proprietor serving since June 2023 as chief executive officer (CEO) of X Corp. She previously served as chairwoman of global advertising & partnerships at NBCUniversal from 2011 to 2023.
Jared John Birchall is an American business executive and a former banker. He is the chief executive officer of neurotechnology company Neuralink and the wealth manager of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk since 2016. As Musk's adviser, right-hand man, and fixer, Birchall holds executive or administrative positions in other endeavors of his including the Boring Company, Musk Foundation, xAI, and managing his family office.
Kate Conger is an American journalist and writer who works for The New York Times. She has previously worked as a reporter at Gizmodo and TechCrunch. She is the co-author of 2024's Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter.
Elon Musk is a businessman known predominantly for his leading roles in the automotive company Tesla, Inc. and the space company SpaceX. Musk is also known for his ownership of X Corp., and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI.