Battle for the Bird
Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and the $44 billion Fight for Twitter’s Soul Kurt Wagner Hodder & Stoughton, £20
Even at its peak, socialmedia platform Twitter (now rebranded X) had a much smaller user base than its rival, Facebook. But with Twitter being the top online social network for news and opinion, it became the cultural and political centre of the internet – in turn making it a target for political attacks from all sides of the spectrum, particularly when it came to its moderation policies during crucial elections or at times of crisis, such as during Covid. At the same time, Twitter the company has been riven by internal battles and has struggled to convert its influence into cash. This account by Kurt Wagner tells the story of Twitter from its foundation to the present day.
According to the author, he originally intended to chronicle the conflict between Twitter’s freewheeling founder Jack Dorsey and those who felt that Twitter needed a firmer hand to weed out the misinformation, bots and extremists on the platform, whose activities were deterring advertisers and leading to calls for regulation. But mercurial billionaire Elon Musk’s decision to buy Twitter, and push through wide-scale changes to everything from its moderation policies to its internal culture and even its name, forced him to rethink. As a result, the book now includes a large section on the takeover battle and its aftermath, which some say has left Twitter a shadow of its former self.
The book is well researched and blends material from public documents and published books with the recollections of those Wagner has interviewed to produce his detailed narrative. Wagner doesn’t come down on any side of the argument, but you do get a sense that, although Twitter’s management was always going to face a difficult balancing act whatever they did, Musk’s lack of tact and people skills made a bad situation worse. Wagner’s book is a sobering reminder that the skills and approach of a talented and visionary leader that work so well in one area will not necessarily deliver comparable results in other areas.