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.

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”.

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.