Elon Musk and I aren’t exactly old friends, but we do go back quite a few years – to early 2013 when I was the public editor (a kind of ombudswoman) at the New York Times. The tech-news website CNET recently suggested me as a potential chief executive for Twitter, the global social media platform which Musk has been busy running into the ground after buying it for a stunning $44bn last fall. First, Warren Buffett at the Buffalo News, my hometown paper where I started as a summer intern and became the first woman top editor; and more recently, Jeff Bezos at the Washington Post, where I was the paper’s media columnist for six years, mostly during the legendary Marty Baron’s stint as executive editor.