‘I Don’t Really Have a Business Plan’: How Elon Musk Wings It

As Twitter negotiated a sale to Elon Musk last month, the social media company pulled out a corporate takeover playbook.

Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, did the opposite.

He had no plan for how to finance or manage Twitter, Mr. Musk told a close associate. To push the $44 billion deal through, he turned to a small inner circle, including Jared Birchall, the head of his family office, and Alex Spiro, his personal lawyer. And when Twitter resisted his overtures, Mr. Musk pressured the company with a string of tweets — some mischievous, some barbed and all impulsive.

Tech billionaires such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Larry Page often make long-term plans and manage their affairs through a corporate machinery of lawyers, communications professionals and different advisers. Mr. Musk, 50, operates unlike any of them.