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When Elon Musk finally closed his $44bn deal to buy Twitter in October 2022, despite months of trying to wriggle out of the plump contract as markets slumped, he displayed no remorse. “Fuck Zuck!” he shouted as he signed the papers with a flourish, in a machismo challenge to the Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, now his direct competitor in the dog-eat-dog world of social media.
当埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)最终在2022年10月完成440亿美元收购Twitter的交易时（尽管在市场暴跌的时候，他花了几个月试图摆脱这笔大合同），他没有表现出任何悔意。“去他的扎克(Fuck Zuck)！”他一边夸张地叫喊，一边在文件上签了字，这是对Meta老板马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)的大男子主义挑战。在“狗咬狗”的社交媒体世界中，扎克伯格现在是他的直接竞争对手。
It was a provocative — and fitting — start to what would become one of the most dramatic overhauls in corporate culture to date. Within weeks, the mercurial Musk set about sacking or losing more than 80 per cent of Twitter’s staff of 7,500 and replacing its meandering, overly bureaucratic management with his “hardcore”, up-all-night working dogma, all in the hopes of ushering a new era of “free speech”.
这是一个挑衅性的——也是恰如其分的——开端，后来演变为迄今为止最具戏剧性的企业文化改革之一。几周之内，反复无常的马斯克就开始解雇或流失7500名Twitter员工中的80%以上，并用他的“硬核”、通宵达夜的工作教条取代迂曲、过于官僚的管理层，希望开启一个“言论自由”的新时代。
But in doing so, Musk didn’t just “break” Twitter — “Twitter broke Elon Musk”, argues Ben Mezrich. In Breaking Twitter, the bestselling American author chronicles the lead-up to and first chaotic months of the billionaire’s takeover of the social media platform, attempting to get inside Musk’s head as he seemingly unravels at the helm.
但美国畅销书作家本•麦兹里奇(Ben Mezrich)认为，在这样做的过程中，马斯克不仅“打破”了Twitter——“Twitter也打破了埃隆•马斯克”。在《打破Twitter》(Breaking Twitter)一书中，他记录了这位亿万富翁接管Twitter之前几个月和接管后最初几个月的混乱，试图了解马斯克似乎失去对局面掌控时的想法。
Mezrich — best known for his narrative non-fiction works such as The Accidental Billionaires, about the founding of Facebook — does this by interweaving the first-person narratives of a handful of mid- to high-level staffers, with chapters from Musk’s imagined vantage point. It is a dramatisation, much of which has already been published, rather than a feat of deep access and dogged reporting.
麦兹里奇——他最著名的是非虚构类叙事作品，如《偶然的亿万富翁》(The Accidental Billionaires)，讲述了Facebook的创立过程——的写作将少数中高层员工的第一人称叙述，与想象出来的、从马斯克的领导位置出发的章节交织在一起。这是一种戏剧化写作，其中大部分基于已出版资料，而不是深入的访问和坚持不懈的记录。
It’s unclear how much creative licence Mezrich has taken. In a note to readers, he explains that some scenes have been re-created and dialogue ‘reimagined’
麦兹里奇获得了多少创意许可是不清楚的。在给读者的信中，他解释说，他重新创造了一些场景，“重新想象了”一些对话。
Early into the acquisition, Musk is impish and gleeful, even when events are not going in his favour. When his grand plan to open “blue tick” verification to all users leads to swaths of impersonations on the platform — some humorous, some malicious — Musk is seen by one of his senior staffers “laughing, sometimes uproariously, as he scrolled from tweet to tweet”.
在收购之初，即使在事情对他不利的时候，马斯克也表现得嬉皮笑脸。当他向所有用户开放“蓝勾”(blue tick)验证的宏伟计划导致平台上出现大量模仿账号（有些是幽默的，有些是恶意的）时，马斯克的一名高级员工看到他“一边刷Twitter一边笑，有时是捧腹大笑”。
But we also see flashes of a darker side: Musk as the paranoid, thin-skinned leader who loathes betrayal. He becomes increasingly challenged, begins to spiral and flexes his power in response. When his toddler son is the victim of a stalking incident, Musk lashes out by expelling certain journalists from the platform.
但我们也看到了他黑暗的一面：马斯克是一个偏执、脸皮薄、厌恶背叛的领导者。他受到越来越多的挑战，并开始扭曲他的权力作为回应。当他蹒跚学步的儿子成为跟踪事件的受害者时，马斯克猛烈抨击，将某些记者赶出了平台。
When US President Joe Biden gets more engagement than him on a tweet about the Super Bowl, Musk has a spectacular tantrum. When Twitter users vote in favour of him stepping down as chief executive in a poll that he himself posts, a sullen Musk hides away in his office for so long that staffers outside discuss whether to call the police to ask for a wellness check on him. At its heart, Breaking Twitter illustrates the dangers of ego and perpetuating a culture of fear.
一次，美国总统乔•拜登(Joe Biden)的一条超级碗(Super Bowl)相关推文的互动量超过了马斯克，他为此大发脾气。当Twitter用户在他自己发布的一项民意调查中投票支持他辞去首席执行官一职时，马斯克闷闷不乐地在办公室里躲了很长时间，以至于外面的员工讨论是否要打电话给警察，检查他的健康。从本质上讲，《打破Twitter》说明了自负和持续散播恐惧文化的危险。
By journalistic standards, it is unclear exactly how much creative licence Mezrich has taken. In a note to readers ahead of the prologue, the author explains that some scenes have been re-created, dialogue “reimagined”, satire employed, even composite characters created. Narrative presented in Musk’s voice is “based on my own speculation as well as deep reporting”, Mezrich states.
按照新闻行业的标准，麦兹里奇究竟获得了多少创意许可是不清楚的。在给读者的信中，他解释说，他重新创造了一些场景，“重新想象了”一些对话，运用了讽刺手法，甚至创造了杂糅人物。麦兹里奇表示，马斯克的声音“基于我自己的猜测和深度报道”。
Either way, the goal is clear. The book reads as though written with a screenplay pitch in mind, rushed out ahead of the half-dozen or so other Twitter/Musk books that are incoming and just after Walter Isaacson’s all-access biography. Overly cinematic and overwritten, it is largely structured around scenes of vivid action, even those only loosely connected to the Twitter tale.
无论哪种方式，目标都很明确。这本书读起来就像写剧本一样，赶在即将出版的大约六本Twitter/马斯克书籍之前面市，紧随沃尔特•艾萨克森(Walter Isaacson)的全方位传记之后。这本书过于电影化，写作夸张，主要围绕着生动的动作场景展开，即使是那些场景与Twitter故事只有松散的联系。
While the pitch clearly worked — news of a limited series based on the book circulated recently — it is unsatisfying for those searching for the bigger picture. There is little consideration of what Twitter (since renamed X) was, could or should be, or the philosophical questions thrown up by the takeover — for example around the merits or challenges of shareholder primacy.
虽然这一卖点显然奏效了——最近有消息称，将根据这本书制作一部限定剧——但对于那些希望看到更大图景的人来说，它并不令人满意。它对于Twitter（后来更名为X）过去是什么、可能是什么、应该是什么，以及此次收购引发的哲学问题——例如，围绕股东至上的优点或挑战——几乎没有思考。
The closest access, and most compelling narrative, is the tale of one staffer’s attempt to upwardly manage an increasingly unmanageable Musk. Esther Crawford is a product manager who divided opinion as either a symbol of sycophancy or “hustle culture” when she was photographed in a sleeping bag on the floor of the Twitter offices shortly after the deal closed.
最接近、最令人信服的叙述，是一名员工试图向上管理越来越难以管理的马斯克的故事。埃丝特•克劳福德(Esther Crawford)是一名产品经理，在收购交易完成后不久，她被人拍到躺在Twitter办公室地板上的睡袋里，有人认为她是阿谀奉承的象征，也有人认为她是“搏命文化”(hustle culture)的象征。
In Mezrich’s telling, she immediately curries Musk’s favour, leapfrogging her colleagues to a senior position by charming him and even offering to share a pre-prepared list of who he should keep close and not fire.
在麦兹里奇的描写中，她立刻开始讨好马斯克，通过向他施展魅力得到越级提拔，甚至提出向他分享一份事先准备好的名单，上面列出了他应该保持密切关系、不要解雇的人。
Crawford justifies this opportunism by insisting that it is “her calling” to guide Musk away from impulsive decisions towards sensible ones. Initially she is successful. But by the end of the tale, even her Silicon Valley self-belief cannot compete with Musk’s moods. She, like all Musk staffers, is disposable and eventually fired. But stealing the show, it is Crawford who gets the last word. At the end of the day, Musk is, she concludes, “the saddest, loneliest man she’d ever met”.
克劳福德为这种机会主义辩护，坚称引导马斯克从冲动的决定转向明智的决定是“她的责任”。最初她是成功的。但在故事的最后，即使是她的硅谷式自信也拧不过马斯克的情绪。她和马斯克的所有员工一样是可抛弃的，最终她被解雇了。但克劳福德出尽了风头，她说了本书最后一句话。她总结道，归根结底，马斯克是“她见过的最悲伤、最孤独的人”。
Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History, by Ben Mezrich, Pan Macmillan £22/Grand Central Publishing $30, 352 pages
《打破Twitter：埃隆•马斯克和历史上最具争议的企业收购》(Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History)，本•麦兹里奇著，麦克米伦出版社(Pan Macmillan)22英镑/大中央出版社(Grand Central Publishing)30美元，352页
Hannah Murphy is an FT technology correspondent
汉娜•墨菲(Hannah Murphy)是英国《金融时报》科技记者
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