Former Twitter exec spills the beans on Elon Musk's lack of empathy and more

Former Twitter executive Esther Crawford has opened up about working with Elon Musk, who she says is good at story-telling but bad at making decisions. Last year, Crawford went viral for sleeping on the floor at Twitter's headquarters.

Much to her chagrin, Crawford was eventually fired. Now, she has released a 14-minute video that divulges her story after Musk acquired the microblogging website. The former Twitter Blue product manager claims that the Twitter owner lacks empathy in leadership and allows his intuition to guide him.

As a result, Musk could be facing a potential lawsuit over rebranding Twitter as "X" earlier this month. According to Crawford, Twitter was like a "nursing home" before Musk's arrival. Since she was a top executive at Twitter, there is a possibility Crawford had access to exclusive information that other staff did not.

Furthermore, she claims Twitter staff were rarely fired in the past. However, the company underwent a radical overhaul after Musk's takeover. The 52-year-old business magnate fired more than 50 per cent of Twitter's employees in just a few months.

In the video, Crawford goes on to raise concerns about the lack of psychological safety at Twitter after Musk's acquisition. In fact, she believes Musk will eventually fire all staff without any reason. She also pointed out that Musk is surrounded by sycophants who never disagree with anything he says or does.

This has created an echo chamber. Musk only humbles himself when someone challenges him with data or expertise. Aside from this, Crawford implied that Musk lacks the willingness to accept change. As a result, she even encouraged some staff to leave.

Is Elon Musk really a bad boss?

At some point, Crawford defended her former boss. According to a CNBC report, she believes it was impossible to count Musk out due to his track record. Aside from this, she noted that the Twitter boss is good at cultivating fanatic fans.

"These fanatic fans will unswervingly support everything Musk says, and Musk also gets enough confidence from these fanatic fans...," she added. Crawford even admitted that it is difficult for people to understand Musk.

Nevertheless, Crawford says Musk has "extraordinary talent for solving difficult physics problems." In fact, she learned a few "quite interesting" things about humans from Musk.

She points out that Musk can make a lot of mistakes without facing any serious consequences because he has enough money. Crawford. who was let go from Twitter in February, says getting fired was the "best gift" she had ever received.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Crawford has taken a career break to travel and reflect before deciding what she'd like to do next. Just like Crawford, thousands of Twitter staff were sacked earlier this year. In April, Musk told BBC that he had fired more than 80 per cent of Twitter staff at the time.

A new controversy surrounding Elon Musk's 'X'

Currently, the Tesla CEO is catching flak for taking the @X Twitter handle from the original owner Gene X Hwang without warning or paying him. To those unaware, Musk rebranded Twitter as X earlier this week.

As part of the rebranding process, Musk took over Hwang's Twitter handle @X. It is worth noting that the aforesaid Twitter handle belonged to the San Francisco-based photographer for the past 16 years.

"They just took it essentially – kinda what I thought might happen." Hwang told the UK-based daily The Telegraph. Also, he confirmed that Musk did not pay him for taking over his account, despite his willingness to sell it to the social media giant.

Reportedly, Hwang had been willing to sell his account, but he just received an email stating his account was being taken over by Twitter. He was only offered some X merchandise and a chance to meet Twitter's management without any financial incentive.

"They did send an email saying it is the property of 'x' essentially," he said. Now, his account has been moved to a new handle called "@x12345678998765″. Taking to Twitter last week, he wrote "All's well that ends well."