82. The Takeover

“The Takeover” chron­i­cles the dra­mat­ic close of the Twit­ter deal on Thurs­day, Octo­ber 27, 2022—a day ear­li­er than every­one, includ­ing Twit­ter’s own man­age­ment and Wall Street, expect­ed. Elon Musk, along­side key allies such as Anto­nio Gra­cias, Kyle Cor­co­ran, Kate Claassen, and legal advi­sor Alex Spiro, orches­trat­ed a covert oper­a­tion from the con­fines of a war room, drink­ing Pap­py Van Win­kle bour­bon amidst the ten­sion.

Defy­ing the planned order­ly tran­si­tion set for Fri­day morn­ing, Musk’s team aimed to dis­rupt the nar­ra­tive. They embarked on a metic­u­lous­ly planned over­throw to con­clude the trans­ac­tion Thurs­day night, allow­ing Musk to effec­tu­ate a “for cause” ter­mi­na­tion of Twit­ter’s CEO Parag Agraw­al and oth­er senior exec­u­tives before their stock options could vest. This auda­cious move was dri­ven by Musk’s per­cep­tion that Twit­ter’s man­age­ment had deceived him, along­side his eager­ness to pre­vent their finan­cial gain from what he viewed as mis­man­age­ment.

Alex Spiro, Musk’s sea­soned lawyer known for his readi­ness for com­bat and piv­otal role dur­ing Musk’s 2018 legal chal­lenges, played a cru­cial role in this strat­e­gy. This maneu­ver was char­ac­ter­ized not just by a desire for vengeance or mon­e­tary sav­ings; it was also a dis­play of Musk’s love for dra­mat­ic, game-like strate­gies in busi­ness.

The cli­max occurred at 4:12 p.m. Pacif­ic Time, when con­fir­ma­tion of the funds trans­fer allowed Musk’s team to final­ize the deal. With­in min­utes, dis­missal let­ters were hand­ed to Agraw­al, CFO Ned Segal, legal head Vijaya Gadde, and gen­er­al coun­sel Sean Edgett, mark­ing a swift and unan­tic­i­pat­ed shift in Twit­ter’s lead­er­ship and con­trol, effect­ed with Musk’s char­ac­ter­is­tic blend of strate­gic fore­sight and a pen­chant for the­atrics.