Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Mezrich (Dumb Money) provides a novelistic recap of Musk's tumultuous reign as Twitter CEO up to February 2023, before its name change. Mezrich takes almost palpable glee in the chaos that followed Musk's purchase of the company in October 2022, detailing his firing of half of Twitter's workforce, advertisers' exodus as hate speech surged on the platform, and the bungled blue check system revamp. In Mezrich's telling, Musk quickly withered from a brash visionary to a petty tyrant; for instance, Musk, nonplussed that President Biden's Super Bowl tweet scored more impressions than his own, allegedly ordered Twitter engineers to boost his tweets' visibility by a thousandfold. Sourcing the narrative from a few pseudonymous Twitter insiders, Mezrich cops to altering timelines and inventing composite characters, and renders Musk's stream of consciousness in thunderous Technicolor even though the tycoon declined to talk to him ("Elon's four-hundred-foot tall glittery stainless-steel Starship... was utterly spectacular, the most beautiful sight Elon had ever seen, the most beautiful thing anyone had ever seen... and the whole fucking room shook and shook and shook," he reports from inside Musk's head during a SpaceX rocket launch). Still, the speculation on Musk's mindset feels plausible, and those who can look past the liberties taken with the truth will enjoy the propulsive tale, well told. This provides further proof of Mezrich's talent for chronicling the foibles of the tech elite. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Mezrich (The Antisocial Network), who writes best-selling creative nonfiction and standalone novels, focuses on Elon Musk's Twitter (aka X) takeover in his latest. The book takes readers from a January 15, 2020, offsite meeting between 4,000 Twitter employees and CEO Jack Dorsey, to April 20, 2023, when one of Musk's spaceships exploded upon takeoff. Mezrich probes Twitter's role in this heightened era of social media and the changes Musk has made to it already or continues to pursue. He asserts that Musk values Twitter as an open public square with little to no moderation and believes that he should no longer rely upon advertisers who don't support the kind of free speech he advocates for on the platform; Musk wants revenue to come from subscribers instead. Mezrich utilizes primary sources--interviews, emails, and even tweets--but some of the scenes and comments from Musk's perspective are partially based upon the author's own speculation. Mezrich says he also "reimagined" some dialogue, "adjusted or compressed" the dates of some incidents, and renamed some people or created composite characters to protect, at their request, the privacy of some sources. VERDICT Not a pure history, but its novelistic style may draw a popular audience.--Shmuel Ben-Gad
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Delving into the takeover of Twitter (now X) by Elon Musk uncovers rampant bad judgment and ego-driven hypocrisy. Bestselling author Mezrich has written a string of nonfiction books and novels, and sometimes it isn't easy to know which category this one falls into. This is partly because the story and its central character are both so strange, but also because the author plays fast and loose with the narrative. "Some dialogue has been reimagined," he acknowledges, "and the dates of some of the events have been adjusted or compressed. Also, at some points in the story I employ elements of satire." Mezrich also occasionally presumes to know what Musk was thinking, even though Musk refused to participate. The book should be read with a grain of salt, but the author has plenty of intriguing material to work with, and he turns up a few useful insights. Mezrich admits that Twitter was already somewhat broken before Musk took over and sought to merge his philosophical and political views with the management of a social media company. It had a bloated payroll and confusion about its role in the marketplace; begun as a digital venue for the free exchange of ideas, Twitter increasingly censored or banned contributors. Musk apparently wanted it to be a completely open platform but soon ran into numerous practical realities. At the management level, he did not so much trim fat as run a chainsaw through the company. Twitter's financial indicators spiraled downward, and by the time Musk stepped down as CEO, "the blowback had tarnished his reputation, perhaps irrevocably." As for Twitter, now re-branded as X, the real question, which Mezrich avoids, might be not whether it can survive, but whether it deserves to. Significantly flawed, but with some important things to say about business in the social media age. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
