Revealing how Musk bought Twitter: his decision-making process and the inside story

Author: Lan Xi

Walter Isaacson, the author of "Jobs Biography" and the best contemporary American biographer, has finished "Elon Musk Biography", which is expected to be listed at the end of this year. It was published in the Wall Street Journal in advance and restored many exclusive scenes in front of and behind the scenes. I will share some highlights:

In April 2022, Musk's life was surprisingly smooth. Tesla's stock price had increased fivefold in five years, and its market value was higher than the nine car manufacturers behind it combined. SpaceX's launch volume in the first quarter was the same as the total number of other countries on the planet. 2 times, and Starlink has also begun to serve 500,000 users. If Musk can survive this year safely, it will be a very brilliant year for him, but unfortunately, that is not his nature;

Musk's staff observed that their boss was like a video game addict. Although he won the game, he was still unwilling to turn off the computer. Musk said that he would bet all the resources he won and then enter the next difficulty of the game. , is its own factory setting. It happened that - or it was destined - Musk exercised a batch of expired stocks, with a face value of about US$10 billion. Musk did not want to leave it to the bank, so he began to want to buy himself something he liked, but what? It’s something he likes. After thinking about it, the final answer is, Twitter;

Musk questioned the obsession with overturning Twitter's long-running brand and changing its name to X was a brand but was rejected by Paypal. They said that Determining the fate of the company, this bullet hit the bullseye again after flying for more than 20 years. When Musk was planning to acquire Twitter, he had already decided to replace Twitter with X. This was his response to the trauma;

Another reason for the acquisition of Twitter is that Musk believes that "awakening culture" is poisoning the United States. This idea came from his eldest son secretly texting Musk's sister-in-law that he wanted to change gender, and told her "Don't Tell my dad”, and later the two severed the relationship. Musk attributed this to the fact that his son’s school was influenced by left-wing ideas, and hoped to use the acquisition of Twitter to help the other party’s position that was suppressed;

During the acquisition process, Musk was preparing to join Twitter's board of directors. He began to discuss with his friends how to eliminate the algorithm's unfair judgment on content attributes. Open-sourcing the algorithm was one of the solutions that came to mind at the time. Musk was indeed acquiring Twitter. Te later did it, and then Musk said with a smile that he would use Twitter to complete the unfinished vision of x.com and Paypal. The blue label charging was a test, because in his view, Twitter must have the ability to pay. , users link their credit cards to Twitter, which is the first step; Musk and his new girlfriend were not very attentive when they were dating in Hawaii. He couldn’t sleep during the sage time. He checked the accounts with the most followers on Twitter and found that they were not very active. Then Musk sent Tweeted and asked "Is Twitter going to die?" An hour and a half later, Twitter's CEO sent a text message, saying that you can complain all you want, but "saying Twitter is going to die doesn't make Twitter better ", Musk was directly angry when he saw it, and he asked, "What work did you do this week? I won't be on the board of directors, it's a waste of time. I'm going to privatize Twitter directly";

The CEO of Twitter was dumbfounded, and asked almost pleadingly "Can we talk?" A few minutes later, the chairman of Twitter's board of directors also contacted Musk and said, "Can you give me 5 minutes to let me understand the cause and effect", Musk told him that chatting to fix Twitter was useless and that direct action was needed. Immediately afterwards, Musk began asking his financial managers to start acquiring Twitter stock;

A few days later, Musk was dating another girlfriend. He was sometimes very stressed, so his girlfriend would leave him in the hotel to socialize by herself. When she returned to the hotel one day, she found Musk playing "Elden" "Ring of Dharma", he played it all night without sleeping. When he finally turned off his laptop, he immediately took out his mobile phone and sent a tweet, announcing his acquisition decision to the world in a short sentence: "I made an offer";

Musk's mobility is very high. He soon began to raise funds for the acquisition plan. Many people were interested in his transactions. Some people said to him, "It doesn't matter how much money you want, $1 billion, or whatever you want to come up with." "The number", Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, also contacted him to invest 5 billion US dollars - this guy later became a thunderbolt - but Musk hated his attitude that he would turn to the topic of blockchain no matter what he talked about, "As long as He started talking, and my bullshit detector went off like a red alarm on a Geiger counter." Musk eventually turned him down because "I needed a trading partner, not someone to teach me how to do things. ";

After the successful fundraising, Musk received the news that Twitter’s board of directors agreed to sell at the end of April 2022. Twitter was full of heated discussions about the deal, but Musk did not participate. He was busy at the rocket launch site in Texas. Dealing with the Raptor engine failure, SpaceX engineers all knew his temper, so no one mentioned it to him. For a while, Musk’s emotions fluctuated back and forth between excitement and frustration, and sometimes because it can promote freedom of speech. Jubilant and sometimes aggrieved that he had to sleep in Twitter headquarters cleaning up the mess, he underestimated the chaos within Twitter;

Several whistleblowers convinced Musk that Twitter had lied about its user base. He became furious and made three or four phone calls with his lawyers every day. He believed that the $44 billion offer was too high and wanted to overturn and renegotiate the negotiations, but Twitter He began to sue him in Delaware, pressuring him to accept his offer and execute the contract. Musk's lawyer showed his cards to him, saying that if he really went through the litigation process, he would most likely lose the case, so Musk admitted defeat and resumed After understanding the trading process, he even comforted himself, "Okay, I can pay a premium, because the people who manage Twitter are a bunch of idiots. They have lowered the value of Twitter, so let me solve the problems they caused." ;

After the acquisition was completed, Musk visited Twitter headquarters again as the owner. He wandered around the 10-story office building and observed carefully. He saw "normal" facilities such as a coffee bar, yoga room, gym and game arcade, and also saw When he arrived at the restroom, he saw the sign "Gender diversity is welcome here" and found a T-shirt printed with "Stay Awakened" in Twitter's brand display cabinet. He waved the T-shirt and said that the virus infecting the United States is also infected the company;

Initially, there was an irreconcilable contradiction between the "Twitter Universe" and the "Musk Universe". Diversity, everyone needs to feel safe here", this is the explanation of the former CMO of Twitter. One of the results of her work on Twitter is to establish a "psychological safety" system that requires employees not to do anything that causes discomfort to others. expression. It didn’t take long for Musk to fire her;

Musk hates "psychological safety". His favorite word is "hardcore." He believes that discomfort is a good thing and a weapon against complacency. He first laughed at the "psychological safety" system, and then Disgusted by the ubiquitous blue bird logo in Twitter’s offices, Musk prefers dark and stormy drama to refreshing and light-hearted chit-chat. “All these damn birds have to get out,” he decreed. first command;

With the deal finalized, Twitter entered the delisting process, but Musk still had work to do, and he was waiting to pull the trigger on Friday's opening day, because he did not forget that Twitter management cheated him on user data this matter. Musk and the bankers who were loyal to him worked together to operate the early closing plan. Six minutes after the transfer of Twitter’s ownership was completed, Musk canceled the mailboxes of all management. The management had already written their resignation letters. , but they found that the email could not be sent out at all. Musk did not give them a chance to leave decently, but announced to the public that he fired Twitter’s CEO, CFO and legal director, which would cause trouble for their stock exercise. “We In the end, they beat them,” Musk’s lawyer concluded for him.

That’s it for the part published in the Wall Street Journal. If nothing else happens, this book should occupy the top spot on the best-selling list of business/biography books for at least the next year. I plan to get a copy.