Elon Musk is happy with chaos, explains his biographer: “He is the highest risk taker you can find”

The changes in Twitter are tremendous since it came into the hands of Elon Musk, last October. And there is a key word that has been around since then in the little bird company: chaos.

Layoffs, radical modifications, comings and goings, all in just weeks. The thing to note: more changes are coming. Twitter is in full swing.

Ashlee Vance wrote, in 2015, one of the most widespread biographies on Elon Musk, titled Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. He knows the billionaire like few others, a South African like him, as well as a lover of technology.

Vance left him to the country (in a subscriber-only note) a catchphrase about the tycoon: “For him, chaos is standard operating procedure.”

and to the podcast Recode Media, by Peter Kafka for Vox, I confirm: “The chaos we see unfolding on Twitter I don’t think it really scares Elon. Tesla and SpaceX have been on the brink of bankruptcy, in life and death struggles for most of their existence. And that’s kind of where (Musk) seems to exist.”

Faced with risk, Musk “becomes emboldened and takes more and more risks as he goes (…) I’ve always thought of him as the biggest player, the highest risk taker you can find.”

Elon Musk on Twitter, the maelstrom in a matter of weeks

The Tech Mogul paid 44 billion dollars to become Twitter, after months of criticism and praise. Once he took office, he fired the company’s executives and almost half of the workforce, even changing the form of account verification, for which now he will be paid between 8 and 11 dollars a month, according to the user.

It also reopened the doors to accounts that had been suspended for various reasons, such as that of former President Donald Trump, and removed all kinds of obstacles to conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19.

For Vance, Twitter may be a major distraction for Musk. “I was really surprised, I’m still surprised. This seems so opposite to everything he has been interested in and stood for for the last 20 years.”

“My guess is that obviously Elon is something of a Twitter addict. Enjoy the service. I think he wanted to exert a little more control over him.”

Twitter advertisers are concerned about the billionaire’s behavior. Vance indicates: “I think he’s fighting with himself (…) there’s just no way to control it. And he can’t control himself.”

“I think the central battle he’s facing right now is that he wants Twitter to be kind of separate from his personality and for people to judge him that way. And he doesn’t seem to understand that this is impossible.”