Breaking Twitter

Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History

By: Ben Mezrich

Narrated by: Will Collyer

From New York Times bestselling author Ben Mezrich: the book Elon Musk doesn’t want you to read

BREAKING TWITTER takes readers inside the darkly comic battle between one of the most intriguing, polarizing, influential men of our time—Elon Musk—and the company that represents our culture’s dearest hope for a shared global conversation. From employee accounts within Twitter headquarters to the mission-driven team Musk surrounded himself with, this is the full story from all sides. Can Musk miraculously succeed or will he spectacularly fail? What will that mean to the global town hall that is Twitter? What, really, is Elon’s end goal? The whole world is watching. BREAKING TWITTER will provide ringside seats.

Elon Musk didn't break Twitter. Twitter broke Elon Musk.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Ben Mezrich (P)2023 Grand Central Publishing

Critic reviews

"Mezrich mans the conveyor belt at the factory that turns raw reality into its eventual slick cinematic depiction."—New York Times

"Mezrich can conjure a scene so vivid that you not only feel like you know the people on the page, but feel as if you’re in the room with them."—Porchlight

A sad end to a platform

It’s about what I expected. It was a complete cluster of a takeover without any real planning. Twitter was a great app I’ve used for years and invested a lot in my follower’s knowledge, engagement, and growth. Now it’s a vast wasteland of tweets “I dumped sugar and starting working out for 43 minutes a day and used AI to 150x my site and made $2M in 5 minutes. Details in thread!” Thanks Elon.

Gripping story; Excellent narration

I couldn’t stop listening. Nearly listened to it in one go. I don’t use Twitter, nor do I intend do, but it’s impact cannot be understated. It is now a dangerous tool in the hands on an impulsive and immature owner who seems to have practically no one telling him the truth.

Great listen

A great telling of a fascinating story. However, I hope to never hear the word “tweep” again. Ever.

Helpful narrative

This was a very helpful timeline—as a non techie, but only-slightly-less-than-average online, the entire Twitter fiasco was a mystery to me. I had given up all social media back in 2016, save for Twitter, which I used for educational purposes and professional connections outside of academia. Like a lot of others, I was bummed when I had to lose the last of my connections to the wide world of scientists outside of my discipline. I was (am) concerned about the fate of public discourse and the erosion of civic engagement, and am always seeking to understand how we got here.

I’ve followed Elon’s career most of my adult life, and had been excited when he launched Space X (though I had no delusions about his personal skills after he’d unironically asked an interviewer how many hours a week he was ‘supposed’ to spend with his family). I had, and still have, a pretty dim view of how he and the rest of corporate America treat humans as commodities, but this book did remind me that there is some humanity in him somewhere. None of us are the villain in our own stories…

Nothing to see here

Old news No new details. Elon Musk being Elon Musk. The story is the same shoot from the hip go with my gut and then fix it

Incisive and revelatory

Brilliant expose about the cult of the Musk myth and the effect his ineptitude had on Twitter

Selectively biased

I’ve been a huge Ben Mezrich fan for 2 decades, reading every book. This was another great story. However it was interesting to see certain details selectively left out or slightly biased. Joe Rogan conservative? James Baker’s association with the FBI and why he was fired? The Twitter Files not revealing anything that most people didn’t already know? I found these items and several more quite consequential to the story and feel they negatively contributed to the overall story. Certainly not Mezrich’s best work, but entertaining and well written as always.

Riveting!

I couldn’t stop listening! The narration was top notch. I can’t wait until the movie comes out!

Felt like a movie pitch

The book feels like it leaves just enough details out so that it could become a film about Elons twitter that wouldn’t upset either side of the conversation. If you’re going to title it “breaking twitter,” either go all in or go home.

Not So Juicy

I wouldn’t want to be an author writing about a multi-billionaire, paranoid, sociopathic, impulsive, ego-maniacal, self professed super-genius.

I would be careful with my choice of words. I would lay out some facts, and keep my opinions to myself.

Walter Isaacson did.
Ben Mezrich did.

I wouldn’t say I ever liked Elon, but I respected his accomplishments and the big-thinking, almost mission-driven things he pushed forward.

But the more I hear from him lately, the more I think he is an uncaring, hard-hearted ego-maniac, who uses “big-thinking mission-driven things” as air cover to get impossibly rich and behave with total disregard to those affected by his antics.

No one seems to be quite brave enough to say that in print yet.