(2022-04-29) The Shadow Crew Who Encouraged Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover

The Shadow Crew Who Encouraged Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover. (Musk Buys Twitter) Before and during Mr. Musk’s breakneck takeover of Twitter, a close-knit group of libertarian-leaning activists and businessmen have been encouraging him to get involved. This group includes the so-called PayPal mafia—former executives at the online payments company who include Mr. Musk, the investor Peter Thiel and entrepreneur David Sacks—as well as ancillary figures like the venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, an early Tesla investor who once served on the auto maker’s board; and Mr. Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, a Tesla board member

may help explain one of the great mysteries of his Twitter obsession: With all the problems in the world, why has Mr. Musk decided he alone can fix it?

He was tweeting an average of nine times a day in 2020 when former Twitter executives say they became aware of his budding friendship with then-CEO Jack Dorsey.

The two men’s shared interests, the former executives said, included exploring whether Twitter could be run more effectively as a private company, as it had been for its first seven years, after Mr. Dorsey launched it with several co-founders.

After his exit, Mr. Dorsey turned openly critical of the company and its board of directors, many of whom he put in their roles.

Despite their disagreement over how to handle Mr. Trump’s account, the friendship between Messrs. Musk and Dorsey persisted.