Musk says owning Twitter ‘painful’ but needed to be done
- The interview was sometimes tense, with Musk challenging the reporter to back up assertions about rising levels of hate speech on the platform
- It was a rare interview with a mainstream news outlet – reporters who email Musk’s companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, receive an auto-reply with a poop emoji
Billionaire Elon Musk has told the BBC that running Twitter has been “quite painful” but that the social media company is now roughly breaking even after he acquired it late last year.
In an interview also streamed live on Twitter Spaces, Musk discussed his ownership of the online platform, including lay-offs, misinformation and his work style.
“It’s not been boring. It’s quite a roller coaster,” he told the UK broadcaster at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.
It was a rare chance for a mainstream news outlet to interview Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX. After buying Twitter for US$44 billion last year, Musk’s changes included eliminating the company’s communications department.
Reporters who email the company to seek comment now receive an auto-reply with a poop emoji.
The interview was sometimes tense, with Musk challenging the reporter to back up assertions about rising levels of hate speech on the platform. At other times, Musk laughed at his own jokes, mentioning more than once that he wasn’t the CEO but his dog Floki was.