Extremely Hardcore - by Zoë Schiffer (Hardcover)

About the Book

"When Elon Musk took over Twitter, two versions of reality emerged. In one, he was a free-speech crusader, a fearless visionary who could grab back power from Twitter's entitled workforce, motivate them to get "extremely hardcore," and multiply Twitter's profit and potential by orders of magnitude. In the other reality, there was the truth. Pulled from hundreds of hours of inside interviews with more than sixty employees, thousands of pages of internal documents, Slack messages, presentations, as well as court filings and congressional testimony, Extremely Hardcore is the true story of how Musk reshaped the world's online public square into his own personal megaphone. Despite having workers with a decade and a half of experience confronting Twitter's most difficult problems - from massive engineering infrastructure challenges to tricky policy decisions that could sway elections - Musk decided there was only one voice that mattered: his own. You'll hear from those employees who witnessed the destruction of their workplace firsthand. There's the machine-learning savant who went all-in on Twitter 2.0 before getting betrayed by his new CEO, the father whose need for healthcare swept him into Musk's inner circle, the trust and safety expert who became the subject of a harassment campaign his former boss incited, and the many other employees who tried to save the company from their new boss's worst instincts, and paid the price. This is the story of Twitter, but it's also a chronicle of the post-pandemic labor movement, a war between reckless executives and a workforce newly awakened to their rights and needs. Juicy, character-driven, and filled with unbelievable revelations, Extremely Hardcore is the definitive, fly-on-the-wall story of how Elon Musk lit $44 billion on fire and burned down Twitter. It's the next best thing to being there, and you won't have to sleep in the Twitter office to get the scoop"--

Book Synopsis

"Schiffer offers a detailed look under the smoke-filled hood... deploying a crisp, matter-of-fact style to excellent effect." -- The New York Times

"A sharp and deeply sourced fly-on-the-wall account... packed with original reporting." -- Financial Times

Before he conceived of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk flexed his control and influence during his unprecedented, $44 billion buyout of Twitter. This is the stunning true story of how Musk managed to upend the world's largest free speech platform through sheer, unilateral force--and what that means for the protection of power in the modern age.

When Elon wrested the app formerly known as Twitter out of the hands of its investors in 2023, his goals for what was previously known as the world's digital town square were rooted in his fervent belief in the necessity of making Twitter friendlier to free speech. "I didn't do it to make more money," Musk insisted. "I did it to try and help humanity, whom I love."

Extremely Hardcore is the true story of how Musk reshaped the world's online public square into his own personal megaphone in an unprecedented, unsolicited, and unilateral buyout. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with more than sixty employees and thousands of pages of internal documents and Slack messages, WIRED journalist Zoë Schiffer delivers the singularly gripping, blow-by-blow saga of the infighting, mass layoffs, and culture wars that followed.

More than just a corporate saga, Extremely Hardcore is a high-stakes story of power, obsession, and ego--an unfiltered look at what happens when the world's richest man buys one of its most influential platforms and bends it to his will.

Review Quotes

"Schiffer offers a detailed look under the smoke-filled hood... deploying a crisp, matter-of-fact style to excellent effect."
-- The New York Times

"Schiffer ... has become one of the most indispensable chroniclers of the chaos inside [Twitter]."
-- The Washington Post

"Extremely Hardcore by Zoë Schiffer, is a sharp and deeply sourced fly-on-the-wall account...It's also packed with original reporting; Schiffer single-handedly broke a great deal of news on Twitter's inner workings herself."
-- Financial Times

"Zoë Schiffer has the wonderfully gossipy and perfectly timed story on what's happening in the company formerly known as Twitter. As much as this book is of the moment, it's also a story of the ages, one of hubris, hero worship, and ultimately, the destruction of a company that should have been a public good."
-- Bethany McLean, coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room, All the Devils are Here, and The Big Fail

"It used to be said that Twitter was like a clown car that drove into a goldmine and fell in. Zoë Schiffer's incredibly written and astonishingly reported book about the Musk era of the world's craziest company tells the story of a man who took the clown car, strapped a rocket to the back of it, and then slammed it into a wall at 100,000 miles an hour. You simply won't be able to put this book down."
-- Nick Bilton, author of American Kingpin and Hatching Twitter

"Twitter was an extraordinary idea that, thanks to incompetent management, never lived up to its promise. Then Elon Musk bought it. Zoë Schiffer's brilliant book exposes...the malicious idiocy of Musk and his sycophants."
-- Roger McNamee, tech investor and author of the NYT bestseller Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe

About the Author

Zoë Schiffer is the managing editor of Platformer, where she covers Twitter, X Corp., and Elon Musk. Previously, she was a senior reporter at The Verge, where she reported on the labor movement in Silicon Valley. Her work has been featured in New York, San Francisco Chronicle, and Vox. She's appeared on CNN, NBC, CNBC, and the BBC.