The Three Mus­ke­teers, James Musk, Andrew Musk, and Ross Nordeen, played piv­otal roles in the dra­mat­ic trans­for­ma­tion of Twit­ter between Octo­ber 26–30, 2022, amidst Elon Musk’s acqui­si­tion of the plat­form. James, much like his cousin Elon in both appear­ance and intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty, became a lead­ing fig­ure in reshap­ing Twitter’s tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture, gath­er­ing a team of engi­neers from Tes­la and SpaceX to over­haul the plat­form. With a deep admi­ra­tion for Elon from his youth, James stepped into the role with deter­mi­na­tion, dis­play­ing an unyield­ing com­mit­ment to Musk’s vision for Twit­ter despite per­son­al sac­ri­fices, such as miss­ing impor­tant fam­i­ly events, to ensure the suc­cess of the project.

The chap­ter delves into James’s jour­ney, from his ear­ly days as a young adven­tur­er along the Riv­iera to his cru­cial involve­ment in Tes­la’s Autopi­lot team, which laid the foun­da­tion for his sig­nif­i­cant role in Twit­ter’s trans­for­ma­tion. Along­side him, his broth­er Andrew shared a sim­i­lar path, both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly, fur­ther cement­ing the Musk fam­i­ly’s influ­ence in the tech world. Their part­ner­ship with Ross, a fel­low tech enthu­si­ast, strength­ened the team’s bond, with the three of them form­ing a pow­er­ful, yet con­tro­ver­sial, group with­in the cor­po­rate world, and ulti­mate­ly mak­ing them the “mus­ke­teers” of this cor­po­rate saga. Their shared vision and unre­lent­ing ambi­tion set the stage for the aggres­sive over­haul that Musk envi­sioned for Twit­ter, sig­nal­ing the begin­ning of a trans­for­ma­tive chap­ter in the platform’s his­to­ry.

As the mus­ke­teers took on the task of audit­ing Twitter’s engi­neer­ing team, they faced imme­di­ate chal­lenges that test­ed their skills and resolve. The process of assess­ing the qual­i­ty of the platform’s code and decid­ing which staff mem­bers would remain to align with Elon Musk’s ambi­tious restruc­tur­ing plans proved to be a del­i­cate and con­tentious endeav­or. Musk’s direct involve­ment in the deci­sion-mak­ing process meant that there was no room for error, and their method­i­cal approach, though effec­tive, was often per­ceived as harsh, espe­cial­ly when it came to trim­ming down the work­force. The ten­sion between Musk’s vision­ary zeal and the harsh real­i­ties of cor­po­rate restruc­tur­ing under­scored the com­plex­i­ty of attempt­ing to trans­form a plat­form as mas­sive as Twit­ter, where every deci­sion car­ried sig­nif­i­cant weight.

Along the way, the mus­ke­teers inter­act­ed with key fig­ures like Ben San Souci and Kayvon Beykpour, who were poten­tial allies in Musk’s vision for Twit­ter but also rep­re­sent­ed chal­lenges to the plan. These inter­ac­tions brought a new lay­er of strat­e­gy and doubt to Musk’s plan, high­light­ing the inher­ent risks and dif­fi­cul­ties of reimag­in­ing such a large-scale social plat­form. The sto­ry cap­tures the dual nature of inno­va­tion and ruth­less­ness, as the team nav­i­gat­ed the fine line between push­ing for ground­break­ing changes and deal­ing with the back­lash from those resis­tant to such rapid and sweep­ing trans­for­ma­tion. Through these com­plex dynam­ics, the nar­ra­tive empha­sizes the chal­lenges Musk faced in try­ing to reshape Twit­ter to fit his sin­gu­lar vision, a task that was nev­er going to be easy, but one that could define the future of social media.

This chap­ter pro­vides a detailed por­trait of the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al stakes involved in Musk’s quest to trans­form Twit­ter, paint­ing a vivid pic­ture of the ambi­tion, sac­ri­fice, and strate­gic risk-tak­ing required to under­take such a mon­u­men­tal task. Through the eyes of the mus­ke­teers, we wit­ness the unfold­ing of a piv­otal moment in the tech indus­try, under­scored by the Musk family’s relent­less dri­ve to dis­rupt and inno­vate. The sto­ry high­lights the immense com­plex­i­ty of reimag­in­ing a plat­form as influ­en­tial as Twit­ter, a jour­ney marked by Musk’s char­ac­ter­is­tic blend of genius, con­tro­ver­sy, and the chal­lenges that come with imple­ment­ing such dras­tic change in a deeply entrenched indus­try. The mus­ke­teers’ ded­i­ca­tion to their mis­sion, despite the over­whelm­ing obsta­cles, rep­re­sents the very essence of ambi­tion and vision, set­ting the stage for a new era in dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tions.