Days after Elon Musk had completed his $44bn buyout of Twitter, Esther Crawford shared a picture of herself sleeping on the floor of the social media company’s headquarters.
Wrapped in a sleeping bag, eye mask on, she added a caption to the viral post from November 2: “When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork”.
Crawford, Twitter’s director of product management, has according to current and former staff risen to become among the most influential leaders left from the old guard before Musk fired more than half the social media group’s workforce of 7,500, including most of its top executives.
The 39-year-old has done so, say people close to the company, by embodying the “hardcore” vision that Musk seeks to instil across his other companies such as Tesla and SpaceX where there is an expectation of working long hours “at high intensity”.
That has enabled her rapid ascent to lead its new moneymaking initiatives, such as the Twitter Blue subscription service and its nascent plans to allow payments through the site.
Crawford has also become one of the few women at the company to join Musk’s trusted lieutenants — a rise marked by her regular gushing posts online about the new Twitter, alongside self-improvement or management quotes.