How Donald Trump and Elon Musk killed Twitter, with Marty Baron and Zoe Schiffer

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Business

4.3 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

2023 will go down as the year that Elon Musk killed Twitter. First he did it in a big way, by buying the company, firing most of the employees, and destabilizing the platform; then he did it in a small, but important, symbolic way, by renaming the company X and trying to make a full break with what came before. So now that the story of the company named Twitter is officially over, it felt important to stop and ask: What was Twitter, anyway, and why were so many powerful people obsessed with it for so long? In this special episode, I sat down with Marty Baron, former executive editor of The Washington Post, and Zoe Schiffer, managing editor of Platform and author of Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter. We discussed how two of Twitter’s most dedicated power users – Donald Trump and Elon Musk — were addicted to the platform, defined it, changed it, broke it, and then put it to rest. Links: The year Twitter died: a special series from The Verge Extremely softcore Inside Elon Musk's “extremely hardcore” Twitter How Twitter broke the news Trump vs. Twitter: The president takes on social media moderation Martin Baron recounts leading The Washington Post during the Trump era Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and
0:02.0	Welcome to Decoder. I'm Neely Patel, editor and chief of The Verge and
0:05.0	and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems.
0:08.0	Today, we're just going to talk about one very big problem.
0:12.0	Twitter.
0:13.0	2023 will go down is the year that Elon Musk killed Twitter.
0:17.0	First, he did it in a big way by buying the company, firing most of the employees,
0:21.0	and destabilizing the platform.
0:23.2	Then he did it in a small but important symbolic way
0:25.9	by renaming the company X and trying to make a full break
0:29.4	with what had come before.
0:31.2	So now that the story of the company named Twitter is officially over, it felt
0:36.1	important to stop and ask, what was Twitter anyway? And why were so many powerful people
0:42.0	obsessed with it for so long?
0:44.0	Here at The Verge, we don't often look back.
0:46.0	We're a sight about the future after all.
0:47.5	But sometimes it's important to stop.
0:49.5	Mark a moment and consider why a technology or a tool made us all feel a certain way and
0:54.5	Twitter certainly demands that level of consideration. The important thing to know
0:59.7	about Twitter is that its leadership never truly understood the platform, especially not at first.
1:05.0	Twitter's users were where all of its best ideas came from, from hashtags to retweets.
1:11.0	The users were the ones who made Twitter a home for both absurdist humor and major social movements.
	...

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