Battle for the Bird: Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and the $44 Billion Fight for Twitter's Soul

An expertly reported investigation into Twitter’s messy corporate history—including Elon Musk’s takeover in 2022, its outsized cultural impact, and its significant role in shaping how the world gets its news.

Bloomberg journalist Kurt Wagner takes you inside Twitter’s everchanging headquarters, charting its rise from flippant 140-character posts to one of the world’s most consequential tech companies. From Jack Dorsey’s triumphant return as CEO in 2015 to the rise and fall of @RealDonaldTrump to the contentious $44 billion sale to Elon Musk, Battle for the Bird exposes the messy reality and relentless challenges that come with building a global social network. With enthralling minute-by-minute accounts of Musk’s controversial takeover from insider employees, Battle for the Bird exposes the real-world impact of the South African billionaire’s new role as owner, and employees’ growing horror as Dorsey’s idealistic promises (and the “Twitter” name) go up in flames before their eyes.

Battle for the Bird is the definite, objective, and substantive account of the fight over the world’s most influential social media platform. Now, for the first time—through deeply sourced, exclusive interviews—you will discover how the visionary promises of one iconoclast gave way to the darker, yet-to-be-defined motives of another, upending the virtual status quo and impacting the flow of news and information to the masses.


Kurt Wagner is an award-winning business and technology journalist covering social media for Bloomberg, where he has worked since 2019. He’s been covering social media since 2013 and has spent years writing about Twitter and its impact on society. He previously worked at the influential tech outlets Recode, Mashable, and Fortune. Kurt grew up near Seattle, went to college at Santa Clara University, and now lives in Denver with his family. Follow him on Twitter or X @KurtWagner8.




“A riveting account of how ‘hubris and resentment and naïveté’ drove Elon Musk’s tumultuous 2022 takeover of Twitter….This is Barbarians at the Gate for the social media age.”

– Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Solid business and tech journalism about how a public good became a nuisance in the hands of a reckless billionaire.”

– Kirkus Reviews

“In Battle for the Bird, Kurt Wagner tells a gripping tale of the high-stakes struggle to control Twitter, one of the world's most influential companies, and the insane, mind-boggling, chaotic battle between Elon Musk, the Twitter board and Jack Dorsey, as the entire concept of free speech hung in the balance.”

– Nick Bilton, author of Hatching Twitter and Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair

“Battle For The Bird is an absolute triumph of reporting and storytelling. Kurt Wagner puts the reader into the room - all the rooms - as one of the great business dramas unfolds and provides an unmatched account of the chaos, power struggles and excitement that have defined the company’s existence.”

– Ashlee Vance, New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk and host of Bloomberg's “Hello World”

“If you want to understand how one of the most powerful social networks in history managed to be such a dramatic corporate disaster, you must read Kurt Wagner’s deeply reported inside story. Battle for the Bird is a warning for Elon Musk: running Twitter is not rocket science.”

– Sarah Frier, author of Financial Times and McKinsey 2020 Business Book of the Year No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram

“Battle for the Bird is a meticulous and riveting account of how one of the world’s most critical communications platforms has become collateral damage in a one-sided love affair gone awry. Kurt Wagner reveals new, shocking details about how this power transferred from one billionaire to the next and fresh insights on whether Twitter, now X, can be saved.”

– Emily Chang, bestselling author of Brotopia and host of Bloomberg's “The Circuit”

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