Character Limit
How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
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Narrated by:
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Edoardo Ballerini
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By:
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Kate Conger
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Ryan Mac
About this listen
Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews
“Riveting . . . Character Limit offers a telling lesson in the cost of getting everything you want.”—The Washington Post
“You couldn’t hope for a better ringside seat on the unfolding drama . . . [Character Limit] is a triumph.”—The Guardian
“Masterful in how it paints a picture and puts you in the room with the famous entrepreneur . . . Character Limit is a page turner.”—Forbes
Rising star New York Times technology reporters, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk’s unprecedented takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal’s seismic political, social, and financial fallout
The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before. While its founder had idealistically dreamed of building a "digital town square," he detested Wall Street and never focused on building a profitable business.
Musk joined the platform in 2010 and, by 2022, had become one of the site’s most influential users, hooking over 80 million followers with a mix of provocations, promotion of his companies, and attacks on his enemies. To Musk, Twitter—once known for its almost absolute commitment to free speech—had badly lost its way. He blamed it for the proliferation of what he called the “woke mind virus” and claimed that the survival of democracy and the human race itself depended on the future of the site. In January of 2022, Musk began secretly accumulating Twitter stock. By April, he was its largest shareholder, and soon after, made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company for the unimaginable sum of $44 billion dollars. Backed into a corner, Twitter’s board accepted his offer—but Musk quickly changed his mind, forcing Twitter to sue him to close the deal in October. The richest man on earth controlled one of the most powerful media platforms in the world—but at what price? Before long Twitter would be gone for good, replaced by something radically different, as Musk remade the company in his own image from the ground up.
The story of the showdown between Musk and Twitter and his eventual takeover of the company is unlike anything in business or media that has come before. In vivid, cinematic detail, Conger and Mac follow the inner workings of the company as Musk lays siege to it, first from the outside as one of its most vocal users, and then finally from within as a contentious and mercurial leader. Musk has shared some of his version of events, but Conger and Mac have uncovered the full story through exclusive interviews, unreported documents, and internal recordings at Twitter following the billionaire’s takeover. With unparalleled sources from within and around the company, they provide a revelatory, three-dimensional, and definitive account of what really happened when Musk showed up, spoiling for a brawl and intent on revolution, with his merciless, sycophantic cadre of lawyers, investors, and bankers.
This is the defining story of our time told with uncommon style and peerless rigor. In a world of viral ideas and emotion, who gets to control the narrative, who gets to be heard, and what does power really cost?
©2024 Kate Conger and Ryan Mac (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Riveting . . . Character Limit offers a treasure trove of answers regarding Elon Musk’s somewhat shadowy acquisition of [Twitter], both in terms of the financials and his motivation . . . Having focused on the exploits of Musk for over a decade, Conger and Mac draw on more than 150 hours’ worth of interviews conducted with a cadre of Musk’s confidants, rivals, employees and peers to paint an eye-opening picture of his tumultuous tenure as the controversial CEO of three of the world’s most talked-about companies . . . Alternating between delicious gossip and harrowing warnings about the power possessed by a worrisome few, Conger and Mac’s reconstruction of Musk’s time at Twitter often paints the billionaire as a tantrum-prone narcissist who always gets his way, whatever the costs . . . Character Limit offers a telling lesson in the cost of getting everything you want.”—The Washington Post
“How can you make a story compelling when each step along the way has already been so heavily covered? Conger and Mac’s answer to that is their astonishing ability to take the reader into almost every room that mattered during the contentious $44bn acquisition . . . there is no doubt that Conger and Mac enjoyed unmatched access to a range of characters from all sides. You couldn’t hope for a better ringside seat on the unfolding drama . . . As a retelling of exactly what happened and what it felt like to be there, it is a triumph.”—The Guardian
“If you’re at all interested in what went down, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a well-written, deeply researched book with all sorts of details about the lead-up to the acquisition, the acquisition itself, and the aftermath of Elon owning Twitter. Even if you followed the story closely as it played out (as I did), the book is a worthwhile read . . . ”—Techdirt
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On May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier’s violence was extreme, but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called “Slenderman”. Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case.
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Excellent narration
- By Pink Amy on 08-21-22
By: Kathleen Hale
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No Place to Hide
- Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
- By: Glenn Greenwald
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security....
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Best Read in Print Format
- By Alfredo Ramirez on 11-22-14
By: Glenn Greenwald
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Doom Guy
- Life in First Person
- By: John Romero
- Narrated by: John Romero
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Doom Guy: Life in First Person is the long-awaited autobiography of gaming’s original rock star and the cocreator of DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein—some of the most recognizable and important titles in video game history. Credited with the invention of the first-person shooter, a genre that continues to dominate the market today, he is gaming royalty. Told in remarkable detail, a byproduct of his hyperthymesia, Romero recounts his storied career.
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Intimate stories of gaming history in First Person
- By Emyli on 07-28-23
By: John Romero
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Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Steven Levy
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers - those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers.
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Remember Why You Got Into Computing
- By Dan Collins on 07-01-16
By: Steven Levy
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Surveillance Valley
- The Secret Military History of the Internet
- By: Yasha Levine
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fascinating book, investigative reporter Yasha Levine uncovers the secret origins of the Internet, tracing it back to a Pentagon counterinsurgency surveillance project. With deep research, skilled storytelling, and provocative arguments, Surveillance Valley will change the way you think about the news - and the device on which you read it.
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Profound look at the internet and surveillance
- By stuartjash on 04-06-18
By: Yasha Levine
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Glow Kids
- How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids - and How to Break the Trance
- By: Nicholas Kardaras PhD
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology - more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity - has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation. Brain imaging research is showing that stimulating glowing screens are as dopaminergic (dopamine activating) to the brain’s pleasure center as sex. And a growing mountain of clinical research correlates screen tech with disorders like ADHD, addiction, anxiety, depression, increased aggression, and even psychosis.
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Fear Mongering - a modern day Mazes and Monsters
- By Veronica on 11-03-20
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Tesla
- Inventor of the Electrical Age
- By: W. Bernard Carlson
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the 20th century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to the development of radio and television. Like his competitor Thomas Edison, Tesla was one of America's first celebrity scientists, enjoying the company of New York high society and dazzling the likes of Mark Twain with his electrical demonstrations. An astute self-promoter and gifted showman, he cultivated a public image of the eccentric genius.
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A detailed examination of Tesla's work
- By Jean on 02-01-14
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The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide
- How to Learn Programming Languages Quickly, Ace Your Programming Interview, and Land Your Software Developer Dream Job
- By: John Sonmez
- Narrated by: John Sonmez
- Length: 20 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Technical knowledge alone isn't enough - increase your software development income by leveling up your soft skills Early in his software developer career, John Sonmez discovered that technical knowledge alone isn't enough to break through to the next income level - developers need "soft skills" like the ability to learn new technologies just in time, communicate clearly with management and consulting clients, negotiate a fair hourly rate, and unite teammates and coworkers in working toward a common goal.
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The Complete Bro-grammer's Career Guide
- By Leels on 09-18-19
By: John Sonmez
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Cybersecurity for Beginners
- By: Raef Meeuwisse
- Narrated by: Danny Eastman
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Companies that can use technology wisely and well are booming, companies that make bad or no technology choices collapse and disappear. The cloud, smart devices and the ability to connect almost any object to the internet are an essential landscape to use but are also fraught with new risks and dangers of a magnitude never seen before. Also featuring an alphabetical section at the back of the book to help you translate many of the main cybersecurity technical terms into plain, non-technical English.
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Not for IT ppl moving into security
- By keith on 03-25-18
By: Raef Meeuwisse
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Cyber Wars
- Hacks That Shocked the Business World
- By: Charles Arthur
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Cyber Wars gives you the dramatic inside stories of some of the world's biggest cyber attacks. These are the game-changing hacks that make organisations around the world tremble and leaders stop and consider just how safe they really are. Charles Arthur provides a gripping account of why each hack happened, what techniques were used, what the consequences were and how they could have been prevented. Cyber attacks are some of the most frightening threats currently facing business leaders, and this book provides a deep insight into understanding how they work.
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For the security professional and average joe
- By Quella on 01-11-19
By: Charles Arthur
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Tor Darknet Bundle (5 in 1) Master the Art of Invisibility (Bitcoins, Hacking, Kali Linux)
- By: Lance Henderson
- Narrated by: James C. Lewis
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The best five books on anonymity in existence! Want to surf the web anonymously? Cloak yourself in shadow on the Deep Web or The Hidden Wiki? I will show you how to become a ghost in the machine - leaving no tracks back to your ISP - whether on the Deep Web or regular Internet. This audiobook covers it all: encrypting your files, securing your PC, masking your Online footsteps with Tor, VPNs, Freenet, and bitcoins, and all while giving you peace of mind with total 100 percent anonymity.
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Technical deficiencies
- By Byzantine Technologies LLC on 07-16-19
By: Lance Henderson
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Prediction Machines
- The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
- By: Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Artificial intelligence does the seemingly impossible - driving cars, trading stocks, and teaching children. But facing the sea change that AI will bring can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know? In Prediction Machines, three eminent economists recast the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction. With this single, masterful stroke, they lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and show how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by CEOs, managers, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs.
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Not sure what I was expecting, but underwhelmed
- By William J Brown on 09-27-18
By: Ajay Agrawal, and others
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Super Pumped
- The Battle for Uber
- By: Mike Isaac
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Mike Isaac
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against the rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley during the mobile era. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a pause-resisting story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic 12-month periods in American corporate history.
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A forced narrative and a bad version of Bad Blood
- By Benji on 09-09-19
By: Mike Isaac
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The Book of Satoshi
- The Collected Writings of Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto, 1st Edition
- By: Phil Champagne
- Narrated by: Stephanie Murphy
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The Book of Satoshi, the collected writings of Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of the bitcoin. The foreword was written by Jeff Berwick.
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Great historic read that'll teach the blockchain
- By Peter Hanson on 05-19-16
By: Phil Champagne
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The Box
- How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
- By: Marc Levinson
- Narrated by: Adam Lofbomm
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried 58 shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about.
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Fascinating Topic sometimes lost in minutiae
- By zombie64 on 07-15-14
By: Marc Levinson
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The failure of Gorbachev's Asian initiatives has had dramatic consequences, by the late 1980s, the Soviet Union was in full retreat from Asia, and since the Soviet collapse, Russia has been left on the sidelines of the "Pacific century." In this exceptionally wide-ranging and deeply researched audiobook, Sergey Radchenko offers an illuminating account of the end of the Cold War in the East, tracing the death of Soviet ambitions in Asia.
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The Making of Prince of Persia
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The creator of one of the most innovative and best-selling video games of all time gives an unvarnished look into the process in this one-of-a-kind compilation. Before Prince of Persia was a best-selling video game franchise and a Disney movie, it was an Apple II computer game created and programmed by one person: Jordan Mechner.
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Rare look back
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What listeners say about Character Limit
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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- exBFF
- 10-01-24
We thought we knew…we really didn’t
Such a thrilling, engaging book. Like so many, i fell in love with early Twitter and have since followed its destruction at the hands of one man.
He not only blew $44 billion and disrupted countless lives in his insatiable need for attention, he is also solely the course of most of his problems.
I’m generally not a proponent of schadenfreude, but if any one person deserves it, it’s this guy.
He will cry into his billions, but I’m not sure he will ever find the universal heraldry he so desperately wants.
This king has no clothes.
Kate and Ryan have truly created a masterpiece. I have a hard time believing imagining anything being a more definitive work about the particular period in Twitters saga.
Bravo for a remarkable book. I genuinely couldn’t put it down. It’s easily my favorite book of the year!
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- Mandy
- 10-30-24
Fascinating
This is a blow by blow of Elon musks takeover of twitter. It’s petty dry reporting but it’s a fascinating story. The reader is excellent.
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- Turing Machine
- 09-22-24
Not sure this is the best book to be narrated
I like the book, especially its writing and details, but am not sure this book is suitable for audio book. Because the too-detailed depiction might be a distraction for understanding of the story. I imagine reading it must be different.
And I just wish the narration of the book could be more colorful. It was too pale in this book.
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- Noel Poler
- 09-30-24
What a takedown
The most brutal takedown of Elon Musk, truly awesome story and storytelling, very fast paced, like being a fly on the wall to the acquisition and fall of Twitter
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- HM
- 09-22-24
What far money can buy and destroy.
To show how inhuman Elon can be. How he used his money to control people lives.
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- eric j rotzoll
- 09-22-24
Revealing
This is an amazing story of vanity, hubris and a deranged man. i deleted my Twitter account after this.
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- Mom in Lakewood
- 09-30-24
Incredible reporting
I don’t know how late and Ryan got the access they did, but this is simply an extraordinary account. Brilliant.
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- Cosmo
- 10-11-24
Lost in Space
Compelling investigative journalism, The authors connect dots that provide insights into an individual filled with contradictions. Notably obsessed by megalomania, with the luxury of wealth to entertain absurdities and eccentricities we receive insights into the psychosis of a highly influential individual. It reveals the consequences of a world out of balance, the vast chasm dividing America and its infectious nature on the global community.
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- Alvaro Bilbao
- 10-10-24
Phenomenal
Excellent book and production. The authors’ meticulous research and reporting is evident in every chapter. I couldn’t stop listening and was saddened when it was over.
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- Jason Jablonski
- 10-25-24
Depressing but engrossing
Obviously well researched and well written. Makes me wish we could bring back the guillotine.
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