Twitter owner Elon Musk has a reputation for surprising people. On Tuesday evening, he made good on it by granting the U.K. public broadcaster BBC an impromptu interview at the technology firm’s headquarters, discussing how his time at the social media giant has been “a rollercoaster” and how he felt layoffs were “painful,” acknowledging that “I should not tweet after 3 a.m.,” as well as sharing his take on a potential TikTok ban.
Asked about the U.S. administration’s demands that TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their stakes or potentially face a U.S. ban on the app, Musk told the BBC that he does not use TikTok himself. “It would help Twitter, I suppose, if TikTok was banned, because then people would spend more time on Twitter and less on TikTok,” he also shared. “But even though that would help Twitter, I would be generally against banning things.”
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Questioned about his time at Twitter so far, Musk told the BBC: “It’s not been boring. It’s been quite a rollercoaster.” He also shared that the “pain level has been extremely high,” adding: “This hasn’t been some kind of party,” but “really quite a stressful situation over the last months.” How does he feel about the company’s progress since his takeover? “Mistakes (were) made along the way,” the mogul acknowledged, but added: “I feel like we are headed to a good place.”
Addressing staff cuts from just below 8,000 to 1,500, Musk said the that these layoffs were “not fun at all,” yes, even “painful” at times.
The Twitter owner also addressed the controversy around the company starting to charge for legacy blue verification checkmarks. Questioned about media outlets, such as the New York Times, refusing to pay for them, Musk was defiant. “It’s a small amount of money, so I don’t know what their problem is,” he said.
Asked about another controversy, he had a mea culpa to share, however. Twitter has labeled the BBC, for which British taxpayers pay an annual licensing fee, as a “government-funded media” outlet, which has led to much criticism. “We’re adjusting the label to ‘publicly funded’,” Musk explained. “We’ll try to be accurate.” He also expressed his “utmost respect” for the BBC.
Musk didn’t shy away from a question about controversial late-night messages he has posted at times. “Have I shot myself in the foot with tweets multiple times? Yes,” he said. “I think I should not tweet after 3 a.m.”
Musk also confirmed that he has “sometimes” slept on a couch at Twitter’s headquarters, sharing that it was positioned in a seventh-floor “library that nobody goes to.”
