Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter

by Kate Conger

As the pandemic began to rage, Twitter’s headquarters, an Art Deco high-rise on San Francisco’s Market Street, lay empty. Dorsey initially retreated to his mansions in San Francisco’s Sea Cliff neighborhood and in Big Sur. But he soon hit the road, traveling to Hawaii, Costa Rica, and French Polynesia. His direct reports complained that they could sometimes hear roosters crowing in the background of his conference calls, a reminder that he was on an island, while they were trapped in their apartments. In May, Twitter became the first tech company to announce that its employees would work remotely, forever—a decision driven by Dorsey’s desire to stay away from the office. By the summer, he stopped chiming in during meetings entirely. He routinely kept his camera and microphone off, leaving employees wondering if he was still sitting near his laptop at all or if he had wandered off to surf.