![]() that may have sacrificed a bit of expertise in the social media platform space,” says Eric Talley, professor at Columbia Law School. It has a mission-critical mentality to it. “He’s got to bring in the people that he trusts. Antonio Gracias, a former Tesla director who founded private equity group Valor Equity Partners, is also advising him on finance matters, along with Jared Birchall, who runs Musk’s family office. Handling Musk’s legal and policy strategy is Alex Spiro, the buccaneering celebrity lawyer who spearheaded his messy legal battle against Twitter itself. Musk’s team is exploring a number of product changes, from bringing back the Vine video platform, charging for direct messages and purging inactive accounts. Like Musk, he is a member of the so-called “PayPal mafia”, a co-founder of the payments group at which Musk gained his first fortune, and is a venture capitalist with Craft Ventures.Ī quieter member of Musk’s chosen team is Sriram Krishnan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, an equity investor in the deal, who is a former Twitter employee and former product leader at Meta and Snap. ![]() Sacks has been brought in temporarily to advise on product development, according to people with knowledge of the move. It is unclear if Calacanis will join Musk’s management team formally at Twitter at a later point. This week, he changed his public profile to read “Chief Meme Officer”, and later “World’s Greatest Moderator” at Twitter, and began posting with aplomb about potential strategies for the business, touting a potential “Twitter for enterprise” product, for example. Put me in the game coach! Twitter CEO is my dream job.” The pair have now been classified in Twitter’s employee directory as contractors, according to a person familiar with the situation.Ĭalacanis, who made his name at venture capital group Sequoia and later as an angel investor backing names such as Robinhood, Uber and Trello, previously told Musk, in messages made public in court filings: “Board member, adviser, whatever. ![]() Of these, the most prominent in the war room have been investors-cum-podcasters Jason Calacanis and David Sacks, who both share Musk’s penchant for free speech and have built up sizeable followings on Twitter itself. It marked a new phase for Twitter, characterised by the new owner teaming up with loyal associates and acolytes. He also changed his title on his profile to “Chief Twit”. According to regulatory filings, Musk is now chief executive of the company, and has dissolved the board – a move he insisted was “temporary”. Musk’s first step after taking the reins was to fire many of Twitter’s senior leadership, including chief executive Parag Agrawal. ![]() “That’s why you’re reading this tweet right now.” The inner circle “Twitter is simply the most interesting place on the internet,” he wrote this week. Instead, they have been forced to watch from their screens as the mercurial billionaire has wielded the platform itself publicly to brainstorm strategies for its future and pour scorn on critics of his plans, drumming up debate and spectacle for its users. Most Twitter employees have received little to no direct interaction from Musk or his inner circle, sparking confusion internally. This account of Musk’s whirlwind start running Twitter is based on interviews with current and former Twitter staffers, people aware of Musk’s thinking, other correspondence and the torrent of public tweets made by the Tesla chief executive and his team after closing the $US44 billion buyout of the social media company on October 27. Some teams were ordered to work around the clock to deliver on Elon Musk’s new product vision, including plans to launch a premium subscription service for $8. Over just a few days, the war room deliberations led Musk to order mass job cuts and press ahead with new product plans, while seeking to reassure advertisers that the platform would not turn into a “free-for-all hellscape”. One of Elon Musk’s first acts on taking over Twitter was to set up a secretive “war room” in the company’s San Francisco headquarters, surrounding himself with a cast of trusted lieutenants and thrashing out plans to transform the company’s stagnant business into a money-spinner. ![]()
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