How Elon Musk’s ‘war room’ of advisers are transforming Twitter

One of Elon Musk’s f�rst acts on taking over Twitter was to

set up a secretive “war room” in the company’s San Francisco
headquarters, surrounding himself with a cast of trusted
lieutenants and thrashing out plans to transform the
company’s stagnant business into a money�spinner.

Over just a few days, the war room deliberations led Musk to
order mass job cuts and press ahead with new product plans,
while seeking to reassure advertisers that the platform would
not turn into a “free�for�all hellscape”. 

This account of Musk’s whirlwind start running Twitter is

based on interviews with current and former Twitter staffers,
people aware of Musk’s thinking, other correspondence and the
torrent of public tweets made by the Tesla chief executive
and his team after closing the $44bn buyout of the social
media company on October 27.

Most Twitter employees have received little to no direct

interaction from Musk or his inner circle, sparking confusion
internally. Instead, they have been forced to watch from
their screens as the mercurial billionaire has wielded the
platform itself publicly to brainstorm strategies for its
future and pour scorn on critics of his plans, drumming up
both debate and spectacle for its users.

“Twitter is simply the most interesting place on the

Internet,” he wrote this week. “That’s why you’re reading
this tweet right now.” 

The inner circle

Musk’s f�rst step after taking the reins was to f�re many of
Twitter’s senior leadership, including chief executive Parag
Agrawal. According to regulatory f�lings, Musk is now chief
executive of the company, and has dissolved the board — a
move he insisted was “temporary”. He also changed his title
on his prof�le to “Chief Twit”.
It marked a new phase for Twitter, characterised by the new
owner teaming up with loyal associates and acolytes.

Of these, the most prominent in the war room have been

investors�cum�podcasters Jason Calacanis and David Sacks, who
both share Musk’s penchant for free speech and have built up
sizeable followings on Twitter itself. The pair have now been
classif�ed in Twitter’s employee directory as contractors,
according to a person familiar with the situation.

Calacanis, who made his name at venture capital group Sequoia

and later as an angel investor backing names such as
Robinhood, Uber and Trello, previously told Musk, in messages
made public in court f�lings: “Board member, adviser,
whatever. You have my sword . . . Put me in the game coach!
Twitter CEO is my dream job.”

This week, he changed his public prof�le to read “Chief Meme

Off�cer”, and later “World’s Greatest Moderator” at Twitter,
and began posting with aplomb about potential strategies for
the business, touting a potential “Twitter for enterprise”
product, for example. It is unclear if Calacanis will join
Musk’s management team formally at Twitter at a later point.
Sacks has been brought in temporarily to advise on product
development, according to people with knowledge of the move.
Like Musk, he is a member of the so�called “PayPal maf�a”, a
co�founder of the payments group at which Musk gained his
f�rst fortune, and is currently a venture capitalist with
Craft Ventures.

A quieter member of Musk’s chosen team is Sriram Krishnan, a

general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, an equity investor in
the deal, who is a former Twitter employee and former product
leader at Meta and Snap.

Musk’s team is exploring a number of product changes, from

bringing back the Vine video platform, charging for direct
messages and purging inactive accounts.

Handling Musk’s legal and policy strategy is Alex Spiro, the

buccaneering celebrity lawyer who spearheaded his messy legal
battle against Twitter itself. Antonio Gracias, a former
Tesla director who founded private equity group Valor Equity
Partners, is also advising him on f�nance matters, along with
Jared Birchall, who runs Musk’s family off�ce.

“He’s got to bring in the people that he trusts. It has a

mission critical mentality to it. [But] that may have
sacrif�ced a bit of expertise in the social media platform
space,” said Eric Talley, professor at Columbia Law School.

“This is a very closed governance sort of model, far more

closed than companies of a comparable size,” he added.

In an email to advertisers this week, seen by the Financial

Times, Twitter wrote that the “transition team has just
started the process of learning the ins and outs of the
company and how we operate”. It added that Twitter’s
leadership team was “working closely” with the transition
team, insisting that “they want to be supportive of our team
and what’s necessary to support all of you”. 

Culture shock
Inside the company, few have had contact with Musk’s inner
circle this week. Instead, it is a team of Tesla staffers
brought in by Musk who initially demanded that managers draw
up lists of who to dismiss and began supervising coding
tests.

Some teams were ordered to work around the clock to deliver

on Musk’s new product vision, including plans to launch a
premium subscription service for $8. The demands have rocked
Twitter’s relaxed and democratic working culture, with one
staffer posting a photo of themselves sleeping on the off�ce
floor in a sleeping bag and eye mask.

The shake�up has caused tensions, according to two insiders,

with a divide growing between employees jockeying to have
clout in the new order and those who think the new leaders
should be challenged.

“It’s almost like a family business now, where there may be

less need for the rigidity of a public f�rm,” said Ann
Lipton, a corporate law professor at Tulane University.

“That said, I imagine it’s quite a culture shock to Twitter

employees, who are probably used to dealing with a more
def�ned chain of command, and we’ll have to see how well this
plays with advertisers who might also expect to deal with a
more formalised structure,” she added.

As D-Day approached for dismissals, many braced for impact.

One senior staffer described feeling increasingly “numb” as
the week progressed. Another said that many were now afraid
to speak up publicly, describing the company’s once lively
Slack channels as “a graveyard”. 

That changed late on Thursday after a company�wide email was

sent to staff telling them mass job cuts were imminent, and
that they would learn their employment status by the
following morning via email. Staffers flooded the social
Slack channel with emojis of a person saluting in a sign of
solidarity; others began to f�nd their email and Slack access
cut off and shared the news on Twitter itself.
Others expressed anger. “Honestly happy to be laid off but
the veil of @elonmusk is pierced. As messy as Twitter was
pre�elon, it is a veritable clowntown of politics and
toadyism and psychological abuse now,” wrote Kushal Dave, a
Twitter director of engineering, according to his LinkedIn
prof�le.

Advertising concerns
Amid concerns about his plans to loosen content moderation
rules and allow permanently banned users back to the
platform, Musk’s team f�rst sought to reassure advertisers —
Twitter’s main source of revenues.

On Wednesday, he told several of Twitter’s top advertising

spenders that he intended to focus on technology and
engineering, and beef�ng up Twitter’s security. Musk said he
planned to offer different tiers of content moderation,
similar to a f�lm ratings system, according to three people
familiar with the conversation, and would appoint a content
moderation council before making any changes to its
moderation policies.

Still, a growing number of brands, such as General Motors,

Volkswagen, Carlsberg and General Mills, announced they were
pausing spending on the platform given the moderation
concerns.

Musk appeared to dismiss marketers’ concerns on Wednesday,

tweeting a poll asking if advertisers should support free
speech or political “correctness”.
But on Friday, Musk warned that Twitter has had “a massive
drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring
advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content
moderation and we did everything we could to appease the
activists”.

He added: “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy

free speech in America.”

“He immediately becomes the punching bag, that’s the downside

of stepping into this role,” said Casey Mattox, senior fellow
at the Charles Koch Institute.

Musk has appeared to relish the challenge. “Being attacked by

both right & left simultaneously is a good sign,” wrote Musk,
who changed his Twitter prof�le from “Chief Twit” to “Twitter
Complaint Hotline Operator”.

Additional reporting by Ortenca Aliaj, Sujeet Indap and James

Fontanella-Khan in New York