It’s lonely at the top – just ask Elon Musk’s former colleagues. The Twitter owner tells the same jokes and anecdotes “over and over” and “seems quite alone,” according to a former senior executive at the company. Esther Crawford, who went viral last year after being pictured sleeping on the floor of Twitter’s office while trying to meet a tough deadline set by Musk, shared her thoughts in a post on the platform which was recently renamed X. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Crawford joined Twitter when it bought her startup in 2020, well before the billionaire took over the social media platform in a $44bn deal last year. The former head of product development, who was sacked in February as part of a round of 200 layoffs, said: “Elon is oddly charming and he's genuinely funny. He also has personality quirks like telling the same stories and jokes over and over. “The challenge is his personality and demeanour can turn on a dime going from excited to angry. “Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him.” She said Twitter employees feared being called into meetings with him or having to deliver bad news. “At times it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said.” “Product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct, and he didn't seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it. “I saw a person who seemed quite alone because his time and energy was so purely devoted to work.” Meanwhile, Musk appeared to put more faith in random feedback and Twitter polls than in his employees who were working to troubleshoot problems. She said: “His boldness, passion and storytelling is inspiring, but his lack of process and empathy is painful.” However, she didn’t pull any punches about the previous management either, calling it “bloated” and “soft and entitled” where “teams could spend months building a feature and then some last-minute kerfuffle meant it'd get killed for being too risky.” Musk recently killed off the iconic bluebird Twitter logo, replacing it with a white X. He has said he wants to create a super-app inspired by China’s WeChat which would offer messaging and payments as well as social media. That vision may be difficult to make a reality, after the collapse of the platform’s advertising business as marketers soured on Musk’s decision to fire thousands of employees and dial down its content moderation efforts. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Microsoft has hired OpenAI co-founder and former chief executive Sam Altman just days after he was ousted from his company. Mr Altman was fired on Friday, less than a year after launching the hugely successful AI chatbot ChatGPT, with OpenAI’s board saying it “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI”. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was reportedly “furious” about being blindsided by Mr Altman’s firing, despite the tech giant being a key investor of the artificial intelligence firm. On Monday, Mr Nadella announced that both Mr Altman and fellow OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman would be joining his company. “We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,” Mr Nadella wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.” Mr Altman replied to the post: “The mission continues.” Mr Altman had previously posted a picture of himself wearing an OpenAI guest pass over the weekend, together with the caption: “First and last time I ever wear one of these.” Mr Nadella followed up his original post on X with further details about what Mr Altman’s new role might be within the company. “I’m super excited to have you join as CEO of this new group, Sam, setting a new pace for innovation,” he wrote. “We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I’m looking forward to having you do the same.” Read More OpenAI in talks to bring Sam Altman back days after CEO ouster, reports say OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman ousted as CEO ChatGPT Plus stops signups after major update ChatGPT creator mocks Elon Musk in brutal tweet ChatGPT goes offline ChatGPT update allows anyone to make their own personalised AI assistant

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