Elon Musk on His Twitter Tenure So Far: ‘Were There Many Mistakes? Of Course’

In his first major interview since buying Twitter — and then gutting about 80 percent of its staff — Elon Musk told the BBC that running the social media company has been “quite a stressful situation… not an easy one,” and “quite painful.”

Nevertheless, the tech billionaire stood strong on the way he’s steered the ship through layoffs, tech glitches, advertiser anxiety, and policy changes that few people actually seem to like: “I think that it should’ve been done,” he said. “Were there many mistakes made along the way? Of course.”

Musk then insisted that Twitter is in “a good place,” and without any hard evidence, said the company is “roughly break-even” and “trending towards being cash flow positive in a matter of months.” He also added that “advertisers are returning,” even though just last week, some of the biggest companies in the world (like McDonald’s and Colgate-Palmolive) were expressing concerns over the proliferation of hate speech on Twitter, which researchers have said has only increased since Musk’s takeover. 

When asked about the rise of hate speech on the platform, Musk tried to push back in extremely online “debate me, bro” fashion. The CEO pontified the issue: “Who’s to say what’s right and wrong?” He then effectively took the interviewer’s inability to cite specific examples of the rise in hate speech as evidence that there wasn’t a problem.

“You literally said you experience more hateful content and then couldn’t name a single example. That’s absurd,” Musk said.

Elsewhere in the interview, Musk said layoffs brought the number of Twitter staffers from just under 8,000 to about 1,500; he’d only consider selling Twitter to a buyer as committed to free speech as him. He also defended internet troll Douglass Mackey, who was just found guilty of violating people’s voting rights by spreading memes encouraging Democrats to vote via text in the 2016 election. Musk called the conviction “over the top.”

As for Twitter’s extremely slow-moving policy change over verification, Musk defended the $8 price tag for Twitter Blue, saying he wanted to “treat everyone equally” and keep Twitter from just being a place to boost “some anointed class of journalists.” Ultimately, he said, he hoped to create an environment where it’s “more a case of the public choosing the narrative, as opposed to the media choosing the narrative” — which will surely be good for battling misinformation. 

Last, but certainly least, it wouldn’t be Elon Musk if there weren’t some really cringey stabs at humor. When asked about that infamous Twitter poll last year where voters said he should step down as CEO, Musk said, “I did stand down. I keep telling you, I’m not the CEO of Twitter. My dog is the CEO of Twitter.”

From Rolling Stone US.