(San Francisco) A former head of Twitter, renamed X, told the social network how its owner Elon Musk instilled a climate of fear and said she was “surprised at his willingness to reduce so much to ashes”.

“But with enough money and time, maybe something new and innovative will come out of it,” said Esther Crawford, who had publicly supported the new boss in the four months since the takeover.

Former director of development products at Twitter, she is known in particular for having retweeted a photo where she was seen sleeping in a sleeping bag at the office, in the days following the acquisition at the end of October.

“The left […] called me a bootlicker billionaire,” she says, “while the right accused me of putting my career before my family.”

Architect of the new “Blue” paid subscription, she had worked day and night with her team to launch it within the time set by the Tesla boss.

He fired her at the end of February, along with dozens of other employees. He had already quickly fired half the staff and asked the survivors to choose between giving their all “unconditionally” and leaving.

“Elon is oddly charming, and really funny,” describes Esther Crawford, but “he can go from enthusiasm to anger in a flash. […] People quickly started to be afraid” to talk to him.

She claims to have made her opinions blunt and worries that those close to the tempestuous boss are “fanatic in their unwavering support for everything he says”.

“Living in a bubble and being at the top makes a person even more likely to be surrounded by yes-men […] who have an interest in being in your orbit,” she notes.

She talks about Elon Musk’s decision-making methods, which are based “essentially on his instincts”, rather than on data or expertise.

“He was doing polls on Twitter, he was asking a friend for product advice or even his biographer. Sometimes he seemed to give more credit to casual comments than to professionals who had spent their lives solving the problem in question. »

She doesn’t spare the old Twitter, which “moved at a snail’s pace, mired in bureaucracy,” and doesn’t comment on the chances of success for the new “moody” “bold” leader, but who “severely lacks empathy”.

Elon Musk has just rebranded the “X” platform in hopes of turning it into a do-it-all (messaging, payments, etc.) app like WeChat in China.