No one knew what to expect when Elon Musk announced his intentions to acquire Twitter. And in hindsight, even those who predicted a rocky start to the platform’s new ownership had underestimated how confusing and disastrous it would be. Over the following months, Platformer and The Verge broke story after story about the catastrophic, farcical transition — the disemboweling of the C-suite, the mass layoffs, incompetent micromanagement, and a high-pressure environment that left employees sleeping on the office floor.
It is a story that is both singular — Musk’s eccentric and unpredictable behavior as CEO; Twitter’s specific circumstances as a smaller network with outsized influence, especially in politics and media — and one that speaks to the broader tech labor market, situated in new fears surrounding the strength of the economy. But more than anything, it was the story no one could look away from last fall.
