SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly six months after he bought Twitter for $44 billion, Elon Musk says he’s been sleeping on a couch in a seventh-floor library at the company’s San Francisco headquarters — where his dog, Floki, is in charge.
The Twitter CEO — or rather, its leader (since Musk said Floki is Twitter’s current CEO) — addressed a range of topics in a spontaneous interview with the BBC Tuesday night, including allegations that misinformation has increased on the social media platform since he took over, rumors of a family-owned emerald mine (which he declared false) and his frequent Twitter controversies (“I think I should not tweet after 3 a.m.,” he said).
Musk also reflected on lessons learned during his first six months in charge of the website, during which he cut costs aggressively and laid off two-thirds of the staff.
Advertisement
“It’s been quite painful. But I think, at the end of the day, it should have been done,” Musk said of the layoffs. “Were there many mistakes made along the way? Of course, you know. But all’s well that ends well.”
playPlay nowNaN min
Podcast episode
Spotify
Apple
Amazon
Twitter has been vastly transformed under Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who is currently ranked as the second-richest person in the world. He bought the site in October on a pledge to maximize “free speech” and then made dozens of experimental changes with little regard for whether they might break the site. Under Musk, Twitter has leaned into a subscription model that offers its signature blue check mark signaling the identity of a user has been “verified” to anyone willing to pay $8. He also has eliminated many long-standing safeguards aimed at spotting impersonators and muting accounts that traffic in misinformation.
Musk defended many of the changes, including the layoffs, which he declared necessary to keeping the company afloat. He said Twitter is down to about 1,500 staffers from more than 7,000 before the sale.
Advertisement
“It’s no fun at all. It’s painful,” he said, adding: “The company’s either going to go bankrupt or … if we do not cut costs immediately.”
Musk acknowledged the company has experienced some serious problems under his leadership, including the shutdown of a Twitter data center in December that led to problems with the company’s servers.
“It was quite catastrophic,” Musk said, noting that Twitter rushed to restore it.
Musk also pointed to some victories, including Twitter’s decision to open source its recommendation algorithm, bringing greater transparency to how the site decides what appears in a user’s feed. He also touted the site’s emphasis on video and its resilience in the face of vast transformation: He said Twitter is breaking roughly even financially, that advertisers are returning to the site after fleeing in the chaotic early days after the sale, and that Twitter usage and growth are satisfactory.
“Many have predicted Twitter will cease to function,” Musk said. “Their predictions have not come true. … We’re literally on Twitter now.”
Advertisement
The billionaire’s interview with the BBC took place on Twitter Spaces, the company’s live audio feature. Musk said Twitter had reconsidered its decision to label accounts including the BBC and NPR as “state-affiliated media.” The state-affiliated label has traditionally been used by Twitter to describe government-run propaganda outlets, such as Russia’s Sputnik and RT and the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily. Twitter has since relabeled the accounts of BBC and NPR as “government funded.”
Musk grew agitated when the interviewer asked about the rise of misinformation and hate speech on the site, noting that the journalist was unable to cite a specific example of the phenomenon.
“You said you see more hateful content, but you can’t even name a single one,” Musk said. “You just lied!”
In a lengthy back-and-forth, Musk continued to demand “one example! You literally can’t name one,” he said. “You literally said you experience more hateful content and then couldn’t name a single example. That’s absurd.”
Advertisement
The Washington Post reported that racist tweets quickly surged on Twitter after Musk’s takeover. Last month, The Post reported that Twitter was amplifying hate speech in its “For You” page, the curated timeline where it recommends posts to users based on their interests. A Post analysis showed that users who were already following accounts designated as “extremist” or “extremist-associated” were subsequently shown additional hate-promoting tweets, including a tweet with a quote and portrait of Adolf Hitler, by accounts they did not follow.
After that exchange, the topic shifted to covid, which Musk declared “no longer an issue.”
As the interview went on, Musk — who appeared in a jovial mood — repeatedly made jokes, including about his dog’s promotion to CEO.
One of Musk’s most criticized moves came in December when Twitter adopted a policy banning the promotion of certain outside social media platforms. In response to a fierce backlash, Musk launched a Twitter poll asking whether he should step down as CEO. A majority of those voting said yes, and Musk said he would abide by the decision.
Advertisement
On Tuesday night, Musk said he had made good on that pledge.
“I did stand down,” he said. “I keep telling you, I’m not the CEO of Twitter. My dog is the CEO of Twitter.”
“I said I would appoint a new CEO, and I did, and it’s my dog,” he said later.
Musk faced renewed backlash this month after Twitter restricted engagement on tweets linking to the newsletter site Substack. The move came after Substack announced a new feature that closely resembles Twitter.
Musk also has repeatedly stirred controversy with his own prodigious tweeting habits. On Tuesday, he acknowledged that his late-night tweets were probably a bad idea.
“Have I shot myself in the foot with tweets multiple times? Yeah,” he said. “I need bulletproof shoes at this point.”
Meanwhile, Musk appeared to confirm a news report that Twitter was accumulating powerful computing hardware to pursue generative artificial intelligence, the field that has developed large language models such as ChatGPT.
He denied using Twitter’s platform to make decisions benefiting himself, such as a ban placed on a Twitter account that tracked his private jet during a spate of controversies in December, as well as the accounts of several reporters who covered the decision.
And he shot back at critics who predicted Twitter’s demise.
Ultimately, Musk said, “they were wrong.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMGmr8enpqWnl658c3yRbGZpbF9mf3Cxy6ilZqWlqLhuwNaiq62domQ%3D