Comment on this storyComment
SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly six months after owning Twitter, Elon Musk says he slept on a couch in a library on the seventh floor of the company he bought for $44 billion.
The CEO of Twitter — or rather its leader (Musk said the current CEO of Twitter is actually his dog, Floki) — addressed a range of issues in an impromptu interview on the site Tuesday night, unloading the interviewer with questions about the alleged Increase in misinformation on the site since he took over. Musk also addressed his frequent Twitter controversies, claims about a family-owned emerald mine (which he ruled false), and lessons learned from his first six months as the site’s executive.
Musk, the bombastic head of the social media site, welcomed the changes he’s made since buying the site in October and laying off more than two-thirds of the workforce. The layoffs, he said, were “not fun at all… painful.” Musk said Twitter has shrunk from more than 7,000 to about 1,500 employees. Musk also acknowledged issues like a Twitter data center shutdown that caused problems with the company’s servers.
“It was pretty disastrous,” Musk said, and Twitter rushed to recover it.
He pointed to Twitter’s open-sourcing of its recommendation algorithm, the site’s emphasis on video, and its resilience in the face of tremendous change. He said that from a financial perspective, Twitter is roughly balanced, advertisers are returning to the site, and Twitter usage and growth is satisfactory.
Here’s who helped Elon Musk buy Twitter
“Many have predicted that Twitter will stop working,” Musk said. “Your predictions didn’t come true… We’re literally on Twitter now.”
The billionaire made the comments in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday night via the company’s live audio feature, Twitter Spaces. In the interview, Musk said Twitter would tweak a new label that has added accounts to Twitter, including NPR and the BBC, which they describe as pro-state media – instead highlighting their reliance on public funding.
However, Musk also denied that misinformation is more common on the site after the journalist could not provide a specific example of the phenomenon.
“You said you see more hateful content, but you can’t even name a single one,” Musk said, his tone growing agitated. “You just lied!”
The two walked on in a back and forth.
“Give me an example! You literally can’t name one,” he said. “You literally said you experience more hateful content and then couldn’t give a single example, that’s absurd.”
The topic shifted to Covid.
“Covid is no longer an issue,” Musk said.
Throughout the interview, Musk – who appeared in a cheerful mood – repeatedly made jokes, including references to Twitter’s name and the idea that his dog runs the company. Musk, who agreed to step down in December after a non-scientific Twitter poll said so, said he lived up to that promise (because his dog is in charge).
“I resigned,” he said. “I keep telling you I’m not the CEO of Twitter, my dog is the CEO of Twitter.”
Musk also laid out his rules for avoiding Twitter controversy.
Here’s who Elon Musk was spotted with at the World Cup
He said he probably shouldn’t be tweeting after 2 or 3 a.m., and he acknowledged the controversy his tweets have sparked.
“Have I shot myself in the knee multiple times with tweets?” he asked. “Yes. I need bulletproof shoes at this point.”
Musk said Twitter tried converting one of its buildings, which is now vacant, into a homeless shelter but was turned down by the property manager at Twitter’s San Francisco office.
Meanwhile, Musk appeared to confirm a news report that Twitter was amassing powerful computing hardware to track generative artificial intelligence, the field that has developed large language models like ChatGPT.