Elon Musk Talks “Painful” Twitter Ownership, Updates On Blue Checks, BBC Government-Funded Tag, Staff Cuts, Dog CEO & More

In a last-minute interview given to the BBC overnight, Twitter owner Elon Musk said his time at the social media platform has been “a rollercoaster” with a “high pain level”. Delivering updates on a number of his more controversial decisions, he said “mistakes [have been] made along the way” but that the social media giant is “headed to a good place.”

During the live interview at Twitter headquarters late on Tuesday night local time, Musk also addressed the controversy over the social media platform labeling the BBC as “government-funded media” and said that distinction will be changed. “We’re adjusting the label to ‘publicly funded’ – we’ll try to be accurate,” Musk, who has the “utmost respect” for the organization, said.

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The BBC said Musk agreed unexpectedly to be interviewed at the last minute. During the tell-all discussion, the billionaire businessman also provided an update on the site’s blue check mark cull and conceded that he “should not tweet after 3am.” 

Legacy verified blue checks will be removed from all accounts by next week, Musk noted. He separately tweeted that the final date is April 20. Regarding media companies like the New York Times who have refused to pay for a checkmark, Musk told the BBC, “It’s a small amount of money, so I don’t know what their problem is. We’re going to treat everyone equally.”

Asked how his time at Twitter is going, Musk replied, “It’s not been boring. It’s been quite a rollercoaster.” Does he have any regrets about buying the social media platform? The “pain level has been extremely high. This hasn’t been some kind of party,” he responded, adding that it’s been, “really quite a stressful situation over the last months… It’s been quite painful.” Yet, while there were “mistakes made along the way,” he continued, “I feel like we’re headed to a good place.”

Musk said Twitter staff numbers have been reduced from “just under 8,000” to 1,500 and called the layoffs “not fun at all” and, at times, “painful.”

When queried over some of his controversial messages in the past, Musk said, “Have I shot myself in the foot with tweets multiple times? Yes… I think I should not tweet after 3 AM.”

After initially posting a series of messages in February showing his dog Floki as CEO of Twitter, Musk reiterated that the Shiba Inu is Chief Executive.

Musk, who is CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, was also asked about whether Twitter is being policed properly with regard to “hateful content.” He responded, ”Who’s to say what’s right and wrong?” and said the BBC reporter’s accusation that the site is not as safe as it once was, must be “false.”

“I’m asking for a single example and you can’t name one,” Musk said. He added that Twitter’s goal is to be the “most accurate” platform that it can be.

Asked about moves to ban TikTok, Musk said he does not use the Chinese-owned app due to security concerns.

“It would help Twitter, I suppose, if TikTok was banned, because then people would spend more time on Twitter and less on TikTok. But even though that would help Twitter, I would be generally against banning things,” said Musk.

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