Elon Musk lives for the drama. That’s evident in how he is running X, formerly known as Twitter. But before he challenged Mark Zuckerbeg to a cage fight, before he erected a glowing “X” on top of the company’s San Francisco headquarters, and before he cut 80% of Twitter’s staff, he had a heated text exchange from Larry Elison’s house in Hawaii in which Musk decided he was the “fire-breathing dragon” Twitter needed.
A new biography on Musk by Walter Isaacson sheds light on the billionaire’s state of mind during the bizarre lead-up to his bid for Twitter. The social media site wasn’t a natural fit for Musk’s portfolio of companies developing electric vehicle and space exploration technologies, but it harkened back to Musk’s longtime vision of building a social platform with payments incorporated. On a psychological level, it fulfilled his constant need to reach the next level in life, Isaacson wrote.
