Flipping the Bird podcast review: Wondery reveals how Elon Musk bought Twitter

The genius behind podcast series WeCrashed and Business Wars has gone behind the scenes of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

Twitter owner Elon Musk at the Met Gala.

Billionaire Elon Musk, by his own admission, is striving for greater collective enlightenment.

That’s why the South African Space-X founder paid $US44bn ($65bn) to buy Twitter, a stale social media platform that has never managed to make any money.

In another twist in the saga, Musk revealed on Friday he had found a new chief executive officer to lead the social media platform.

Musk bought Twitter for the greater good – allegedly – and presenting himself as some kind of Silicon Valley Buddha, parting with his billions for the sake of enlightenment.

The billionaire sealed his purchase of the social media platform with a tweet that said “The bird is freed”.

What’s that saying, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?

Now Musk has a very big bird with about 450 million monthly active users.

Musk’s dramatic purchase of Twitter is the subject of a new podcast, Flipping the Bird, from US production house Wondery.

Picture: Supplied

Host David Brown – the genius behind earlier Wondery series WeCrashed and Business Wars – takes listeners on the wild ride that was Musk’s takeover of Twitter, a journey that played out largely on – where else? – Twitter.

In some ways, Musk is the Don Quixote of billionaires, endlessly embroiling long-suffering shareholders in the execution of big ideas. Buying Twitter was ­apparently about free speech.

“It’s just my strong intuitive sense that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilisation,” Musk says.

It’s possible that Musk just loves having a platform.

Twitter boss Elon Musk announced on Twitter the company's subscription service would show less ads. Picture: AFP

Part of the fun of Elon Musk is you never know what he’s going to do next, be it purchasing a social media platform, launching a rocket into space, or reproducing with alt pop fairy Grimes.

The podcast is a fun rehash of a colourful moment in the history of billionaires.

Musk asked Oracle founder Larry Ellison: “Any interest in participating in the Twitter deal?” before asking the world’s fourth-richest man “roughly what dollar size?”.

Ellison responded: “A billion … or whatever you recommend.”

Brown says the whole thing smacks of a teen movie.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey celebrated the sale on Twitter and said: “Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.”

This is not Wondery’s first rodeo. The media house has perfected its style of podcasting; think high production values, short sentences and compelling narratives.

This podcast does drift a bit, although that could be ­because the story has already been well traversed.

Often it’s just Brown reading Musk’s tweets, of which there are many.

So is Musk the billionaire savant who’ll save Twitter, or will he condemn the social media platform to ruin?

Twitter employees are scared Musk is dragging them back down the libertarian rabbit hole that attracted so much criticism for allowing Nazis and other undesirables on the platform.

And maybe his influence will dwindle when he steps down as CEO in six weeks.

At the moment, it just seems like Twitter is dead, which is possibly a good thing. Everyone go outside and play.

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