Elon full BBC interview 12 April 2023

why did you agree to do this this interview with the BBC um I don't know I like spontan and uh I don't know there's there's a lot going on and it seems like I I actually um do have a lot of respect for the BBC um although sometimes I forget what the BBC stands for you know but what does just kidding you know what it sounds for yes I do um so um yeah yeah so there's there's a lot going on um so look this be a good opportunity to uh answer some questions and um

you know I guess uh maybe get some feedback too um what should we be doing different um I know the BBC for example is not thrilled about being labeled uh stateof media not not exactly I mean I was going to get to that later but let's go for it now it's officially objected to that term do you want to respond to it uh yeah yeah so I mean our goal is simply to uh have um you know uh to be as uh truthful and accurate as possible so um I think there's I think we're we're

we're adjusting the label to be publicly funded which I think is perhaps uh not too objectionable we're trying to be accurate uh I'm not the BBC but but publicly funded is how the BBC describes it okay okay so that would be accurate uh if we use the same words that the BBC uses to describe itself that presumably would be okay I'm not asking you for a yes or no since you're not running BBC per se you're but it's probably it seems to pass a reasonable reasonable so you're going to change those labels on the BBC

Twitter feed and and also npls as well yeah yeah publicly funded basically that that's we're trying to be as accurate as possible okay yeah all right fine um first of all I just want to clear something up are you sleeping in the office here I sometimes sleep in the office like in the library five days a week no no three days a week I'm not here five days a week um but uh there's a a library that nobody goes to uh on the uh seventh floor and uh there's a couch there and I some I

stick there sometimes okay okay um in terms of the general overview the reason why I think we've you've agreed to do this is because you wanted to talk about the first six months as chief executive owner of Twitter um yeah it's kind of like whatever you want to talk about you know right so how do you think it's gone well I it's not been boring it's been quite a roller coaster uh so um I mean things are going I think you know reasonably well I mean we we we've seen some all-time highs in terms of

total user time so uh we we passed uh 8 billion user minutes uh per day which is a lot of user minutes um so um yeah so usage is up uh growth is good um the site Works uh mostly um you know want have a few glitches here and there but uh the site is is working fairly well um and we're doing it with a small fraction of the original you know account so I mean you mentioned outages there there have been several and we we've actually spoken to an engineer who works at Twitter and

they said that the plumbing is broken here and it's on fire and there could be problems at any minute do you do you do you accept that I mean they have been a few outages but uh not for very long and it's currently working fine so you don't you don't it doesn't keep you up at night that Twitter might go offline again uh at this point I think we've got a pretty good handle on on on what makes total work um and uh we're also doing it with uh uh uh two data centers instead of

three so we used to have three data centers uh we shut down one of them so we uh actually 2/3 of the roughly to the prior compute capability uh but we've made uh so many improvements to the uh core algorithm in some cases we improved the um core algorithm by 80% so the actual CPU usage or computer usage is is dramatically less um so uh but the results speak for themselves uh the system despite being at alltime highs of of usage is fast it's responsive it's more responsive than it was before the before the Takeover

uh and we've also added a long form tweets we've added uh you can now post videos after two hours and soon videos of any length um we've we're rolling out our subscriber program so so people can uh content creators can uh actually make a living on on Twitter by having some of their content behind a pay W um and um we open source the algorithm so there's transparency about uh what tweets get shown you know what what content gets shown versus not um I think you say like what are you really going to trust are

you going to trust some sort of blackbox algorithm from some other site or you going to trust the thing that you can actually see and understand but do you accept that there are lots of Engineers that are are looking at at the way that Twitter is built and and the lack of Engineers because so many have have left and are worried about the health of Twitter well I mean there' been um many of these people have predicted that Twitter will cease to function their predictions have not turned out to be true you know insert Mark

Twain you know saying you know rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated um let's go back six months I we're literally on Twitter right now right so it must work let's go back six months and even further further back than that when you put that initial bid in you then had a wobble you kind of said I actually don't want to buy Twitter anymore I mean I mean it really is quite entertaining I mean it's like soap oper uh because when I first made the offer uh the response was the the board adopted a poison

pill so they were like hell no you can't buy Twitter we'd rather die we'd like chew on cyanide before being being Bor that was their initial response and then and then you said and then you said actually I don't want to buy it yes and and then and and and then they said no you must buy us gun to the head you have to buy us I'm like are you the same people who said you'd rather die then then be bored doesn't that seem odd so I guess I guess my question to you is in

terms of you said that you said that the reason was because of bots because Twitter was filled with Bots well looking back at it now was there a little bit of you that thought actually maybe I've overpaid actually maybe I don't want to do this I I want to get out of this be honest yeah no no the problem was that the um uh publicly stated user numbers were in excess of the real user numbers uh so um I've heard you talk about that you talk about basically looking back at it now was that the

only reason that you wanted to pull out yes that literally the issue it's like it's like let's say you um uh buy a warehouse full of goods U and you're told that uh less than 5% of the goods in the warehouse are uh have have are are broken you know um but then you actually get the wareh you look into the warehouse and it turns out actually 25% of the things broken you feel like huh that's uh that's not what you said so then you changed your mind again and decided to buy it did you

do that did you do that right did you do that because you thought that a court would make you do that yes right yes that is the reason right so you were still trying to get out of it and then you just were advised by lawyers you're to buy this yes interesting so you so so you didn't you didn't actually want to purchase it even when you said you were go well not at that price going to really no I mean like like let's say like I think the analogy is pretty pretty close like let's

say you know it's it's like you there's a warehouse full of goods uh they say the warehouse less than 5% of what's in the warehouse is broken and then you look at you walk into the warehouse you say actually it's 25% so you you know you might still want to buy what's the in that warehouse house but probably at a lower price not buying the stuff that's broken so you you didn't have an epiphany you just thought I'm gonna I'm gonna have to buy this I might as well buy the bullet yeah so then you

walk it's super complicated right right I'm not sure you've said that before Oh fair enough um so then you you came into a whole bunch of court cases you said this in the BBC you love it's a you so you you then came into Twitter with with a sync what were your first impressions well I thought wow this is a really nice office building um and uh expensive yes a very expensive office building um great Decor it's lovely place um and um I mean and and definitely is spending money like it's going out of fashion

which isn't it isn't quite going out of fashion yet um so no I the gravity of the situation is perhaps uh not well understood of of um at you know at the point in which uh the company the transaction closed uh quter was tracking to uh lose uh over 3 billion doll a year um so uh and had 1 billion in the bank so that's four months to death so this is your starting position how would you feel pretty pretty intense you know you also had to borrow quite a lot of money and pay interest

on that too well that's why part away it was the $3 billion U run rate so um in rough numbers normal year Twitter would do say let's say 4 and a half billion in Revenue $4 half billion dollars in cost um I mean it was really kind of like a nonprofit they'd run it at roughly roughly Break Even Now problem but that's not a b that's not bankruptcy you're not saving that company from bankruptcy it's breaking even but but then then the issue is that um if you then add a billion and a half dollars

in debt servicing um and have a massive drop in Revenue which we did um which was partly cyclic and partly you know political concerns and whatever um so Revenue you know qu dropped by over a third it's not and this is not just Twitter uh you know Facebook and google' also seen some significant advertising Revenue declines it was it was a little it's been a little higher Twitter but most the advertisers are coming back so I think we'll just we'll back be back where there's a cyclic demand drop which is still pretty significant um but

but in in rough numbers uh Revenue dropped from 4 and a half billion to three um uh and um expenses went from 4 and half to six creating a $3 billion negative cash flow situation um and Twitter having a billion dollars in the bank that's four months to live so unless drastic action was taken immediately this company's going to die and be own let's talk about that drastic action because almost immediately um you sacked a lot of Twitter workers um and and I I spoke to them it was very easy to speak to them uh

when it happened and and the way they said pretty much everyone said is that it felt quite haphazard it was a little bit uncaring do do I wouldn't say uncaring the the the you know the issue is like uh the companies either going to go bankrupt um or if if we do not cut costs immediately um this is not a caring uncaring situation it's like if the whole ship sinks nobody's going to drop right but a lot of people just lost their jobs like that um and and and they wer they didn't even know they

would they lost their jobs often they just they so let me ask you what would you do well you might want to give someone some notice I mean you might it's by the way I'm not running Twitter but I know but this this is the criticism and this is what actual this is what staff members say a little bit of notice uh you know no I understand you have four months to live 120 days in 120 days you're dead so how so what do you want to do how much are you worth I don't know

but I we're talking about around the $200 billion Mark I mean it's not quite your frame it in in a way that that you know that it had had a few months to live you're quite a rich man um I saw a lot of Tesla stock to close a steal I did not want to sell a Tesla stock okay um do do you have any regrets on the way that some of the staff would let go uh I mean people were given you know 3 months of severance some cases more so um but you know

like I said the companies need to run on their own cognizance uh and uh it's it's not it's not so easy for me to sell a stock as people might think I have to sell a stock during certain periods I can't sell stock during other periods um so there's only there are only brief Windows where I can sell Tesla stock and then this is often taken as some lack of faith in Tesla and in fact the the the Tesla stock sales of course the Tesla stock plet uh which was not good do you think those

two were connected well the the people could couldn't partial the difference between I'm selling Tesla stock because I I've lost faith in Tesla which I haven't or that it's desperately needed for Twitter um okay and then after that after um you um let go of a lot of stuff obviously Twitter became slim down a lot and then you started making some more policy decisions one of those policy decisions was to to bring Donald Trump back he hasn't actually tweeted yet right do you expect him to come back at any point like have you have you

spoken to him I haven't spok to I don't know he may or may want come back uh but but the point is that Twitter should be uh a Town Square that that is uh gives uh equal voice to you know the the whole country and ideally the whole world um it should not be a partisan politics uh you know and and the more of a poson politics that are in the very far lift of the spectrum San Francisco B Berkeley politics normally is quite Niche um but if Twitter effectively acted as a megaphone for a

very Niche Regional politics and and megaphone that to the world so if in order for something to serve as a digital Town Square it must uh you know serve all people from all political Persuasions uh provided it's legal um so you know close to half the country uh voted for Trump I wasn't one of them I voted for Biden um but nonetheless uh you know free speech is meaningless unless you allow people uh you don't like to say things you don't like otherwise it's irrelevant um and if at the point which you lose Free Speech

uh it doesn't come back I I think the issue some people have is that a lot of people were brought back I mean some people were brought back who uh were previously B for spreading things like uh q and non conspiracies you have people like Andrew Tate who were brought back who were previously uh ban for things like hate speech do you think you prioritize freedom of of speech over misinformation and hate speech well you know who's to say that something something is misinformation um who's the aiter of that is it the BBC and you

you L literally asking me yes well no you are you are the Arbiter on Twitter because you own Twitter yes I'm saying who who is to say that one person's misinformation is another person's information um the point of which you you said that there is uh this is misin like who is going you accept that misinformation can be dangerous that it can cause real world harms that it can potentially cause um yeah so the point I'm trying to make is that the BBC itself has at times published things that are false you agree that that

has occurred I I I I I'm quite sure the BBC have said things before that turn out to not be true in its whatever it is 100 Year history I'm quite sure yes even if you aspire to be accurate there are times when you you will not be think in the grand things BC does does aspire to be accurate but you accept there has to be a line in terms of hate speech I mean not you're not looking at total 100% unrestricted speech um there's well I mean I generally of I'm of the opinion that

if if uh if you if if the people of a given country are against a certain type of speech they should talk to their elected representatives and pass a law to prevent it so for example you you cannot Advocate murdering someone that's illegal in the United States and everywhere really I I suspect um so uh so there are limits to speech um I mean I guess taking your argument to Lal conclusion then do you accept that there's more misinformation on the platform if it's not being policed in the same way I I actually think there's

there's there's less these days because we we've eliminated so many of the Bots which were pushing scams and spam uh and previously previous management turned a blind eye to to the bot because their bonuses were tied to user growth and if you both if you if your compensation is tied to user growth uh well you're not going to look too closely at some of the users that's part of the problem so I think we've got less less information because we've we don't have the B problem that we used to do um and we also have

um given a lot of attention to community notes uh which corrects uh with Community itself corrects Miss information uh it's been very effective um I mean I I would only just add that you know we have spoken to people who who have been sacked that used to be in content moderation and and we've spoken to people very recently who were involved in moderation and they just say they just there's not enough people to police this stuff particularly around um particularly around hate speech um in the company what hate speech are you talking about I mean

you use Twitter right do you see a rise in hate speech I mean but just a personal anecdote like what do do I don't personally my uh for you I would see I get I get more of that kind of content yeah personally but I'm not going to talk to talk to the rest of for for the rest of Twitter you see more hate speech personally I would say I would see more hateful content in that in that content you don't like or or hateful what do you mean to describe a hateful thing yeah I

mean you know just content that will solicit a reaction something that may include something that is slightly racist or slightly sexist those kinds of those kinds of things so you think if something is slightly sexist it should be vent no you're saying I'm not saying anything I'm saying I'm just curious I'm I'm trying to understand what you mean by hateful content and I'm asking for specific examples um and if and you just said that if something is slightly sexist that's hateful content and does that mean that it should be bad well you've asked me you've

asked me whether my feed whether it's got less or more I'd say it's got slightly more that's why I'm asking for examples can you can you name one example I I honestly don't honestly I you can't name a single example I'll tell you why because I don't actually use that for you feed anymore because I I just don't particularly like it actually a lot of people a lot of people are quite similar I I I only I only look atang you said you've seen more hateful content but you can't name a single example not even

one I'm not sure I've used that feed for the last three or four weeks and I well then how did you see the hateful cont content because I've been I've been using I've been using Twitter since you've taken over for the last six months okay so then you must have at some point seen that you for you hateful content I'm asking for one example right you can't give a single one and I'm saying then I I say Sir that you don't know what you're talking about really yes because you can't give me a single example

of hateful content not even one tweet and yet you claimed that the hateful content was high well that's a false no what I claim you just lied what no no what I claimed was uh there are many uh organizations that say that that kind of information is on the rise now whether whether it has on my or I mean right and someone like the the Strategic dialogue Institute in the in the UK they will say that so look people will say all sorts of nonsense I'm literally asking for a single example and you can't name

one right and as as I've already said I don't use that feed but let how would you know I don't think this is getting anywhere you literally said you experienced more hateful content and then couldn't name a single example right and as I said I that's ABD I haven't I haven't actually looked at that feed then how would you know this content because I'm saying that's what I saw a few weeks ago I can't give you an exact example let's move on we have we only have a certain amount of time um co co misinformation

you you changed the co misinformation has BBC changed this Co misinformation the BBC does not set the rules on Twitter so I'm asking you no I'm talking about the BBC's misinformation about Co I'm I'm I'm literally asking you about you changed the labels the co misinformation labels they used to be a policy and then then disappeared why why do that it co is no longer an issue does the BBC uh hold itself at all responsible for misinformation regarding ma masking and and side effects of vaccinations and not reporting on that at all and what about

the fact that the BBC was put under pressure by the British government to change its editorial policy are you aware of that this is this is not an interview about the BBC oh you thought it wasn't and this I see now why you've done Twitter spaces I am not a representative of the BBC's editorial policy I want to make that clear let's talk about something else you want talk about all right let's let's let's talk about let's talk about something else you weren't expecting that let's talk about something else Narendra Modi the BBC did a

documentary um about uh nendra Modi and his leadership during the rights and goodat um we then believe that some of those some of that content was taken off Twitter was that at the behest of the Indian government I'm not aware of that particular situation so you're just you're not sure I I I don't know if I I don't know about that that you know what exactly happened with some content situation in India the the the rules in India for for what uh can appear on social media are quite strict and we can't go beyond the

laws of a country but do but do you get that if you do that you incentivize countries around the world to Simply pass more Draconian laws no uh look what if we have a choice of either our people go to prison uh or we comply with the laws we will comply with the laws the same goes for the BBC okay okay um since you uh became CEO there's been another story in town I'm not CEO anymore okay you're you're chief twit or what are you no no my my dog flaky is the CEO okay um

he's taking over I I I saw that yes um okay so so Tik Tok has also been in the news there's talk of perhaps the bid Administration wanting to potentially ban it or or or force a sale what's your view of the situation I don't really use Tik Tok um I mean one of the reasons that I emphasize that the uh that our goal here at Twitter is to maximize uh un regretted user minutes or on Tik Tok but they regret the time spent and that seems like okay well we don't want to have regretted

time we want the time to be um I can't say I have a strong opinion on Tik Tok so you have an opinion on on whether it should be banned or not you know I'm generally uh against Banning things um so I I probably not be in favor I mean it would it would help Twitter I suppose if Tik Tok was Bann uh because then people would spend more time on Twitter and less time on Tik Tok but even though that would be that even if it would help Twitter I would be generally against a

Banning of of things okay um do you feel sometimes that your many business interests might get in the way of you having opinion I mean for example Tesla has major Connections in China do you you you you wouldn't you wouldn't have a you wouldn't have a certain opinion on something or feel uncomfortable about saying something because of your other business interests elsewhere do I look uncomfortable actually I do I look uncomfortable um uh yeah I mean Tesla's got activities around the world and so does SpaceX um you know once in a while those things do

come into conflict um but it's not like Twitter is like uh you know operates in China doesn't it's banned in China so um and certainly I've I've received no no communication whatsoever from the Chinese government with regard to Twitter okay um in terms of advertising obviously it's the Twitter is not a private company anymore so we don't really know how how how it's all going have all the advertisers come back uh not all but most and you can see it for yourself on Twitter even in the 4u feed right I mean in the sorry don't

use for you cuz it sucks filled with hate speech I'm told um that's not what I said okay fine well why don't use for you what's wrong with it um how is it going is is Twitter in profit now no Twitter is uh uh rough i' say we're roughly Breaky even at this point and I think you've said before you see a you see a world where you could be in profit is there a timeline on that do you think I mean depending on how things go if current trends continue I think we could be

profitable or I mean Pro I say to be more precise we could be Cas positive uh this quarter if things keep going well this quarter as soon as that uh possibly yeah well um and do you have a message for the adverti I mean can you say which advertisers haven't come back um I think I think almost all of them have either come back or said they're going to come back there are very few exceptions can you say any of the exceptions um I actually don't know of anyone who said definitively they're not coming back

they're all sort of trending towards coming back but there are some that just happen jump in the water's warm it's great that's that's your message to the to the advertisers they haven't come back yeah I mean look uh you know if if if if Disney feels comfortable um advertising you know children's movies and apple feels comfortable advertising iPhones those are good indicators that Twitter is um a good place to advertise um I want to talk about if you have any regret regrets and and you know I think you were Buddha at Dave Chappelle concert I

think your own lawyer a little a little well some say a little some say a bit more um I think your own lawyer said you couldn't get a fair trial in San Francisco because there are lots of people that that don't necessarily like you here yeah but you know I have to say I was wrong if he was wrong I guess the uh because um I was acquitted uh by the San Francisco jury unanimously so but I guess but look do you have any regrets buying Twitter um I think it was something that needed to

be done um I you quite difficult you know it's i' say like the the pain level of Twitter has been extremely high um this hasn't been some sort of party um so uh it's been really quite a stressful situation you know for the last several months not not an easy one I but apart from the pain I mean so it's been quite painful um but I think uh at the end that it it should have been done I think did I were there money mistakes made along the way of course you know um and uh

but you know alls well it ends well and so I I I feel like U we're headed uh to a good place um you know we're roughly break even I think we're trending towards being cow positive very soon like literally in a matter of of of months um the advertisers are returning um the I think the quality of recommended tweets has improved significantly and we've taken a lot of feedback from uh people that have looked at the open source recommendation algorithm and we've we've made a lot of improvements even even since that is main open

source and we're going to keep doing that so overall I think the trend is very good so you know I mean it was actually something I was going to ask you you mentioned the pain but but you actually tweeted uh I think in February you said the the last three months have been extremely tough I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone are you talking emotionally there I mean can can you can you explain I wasn't sted or anything right right like some people around here just dangerous NE of the woods we in it is it

can be but just can you just talk put me through the emotional strain of this yeah I mean look I'm under I've been under constant attack I mean uh it's not like I you know have a stone cold heart or something like that you know uh if if you're under constant criticism attack it's and then that that gets fed to you nonstop including through Twitter um that uh it's rough you know um now now at the end of the day I kind of think that like if you do lose your Fe Fe back Loop that's

that's actually not good um so uh you know if if so I think it's it is actually important to get negative feedback um I don't turn replies off and I actually got rid of I I removed my entire block list so I don't block anyone either um so so somebody can you know so so I get like a lot of negative feedback um I think it's actually good to get Negative feed back right when you talk about the the emotional strain you've gone back to feedback is is that the thing that's been most difficult to

take the sort of negative feedback yeah I mean if if uh if the media is writing nonstop stories about why you're a horrible person I mean you know um it's uh hurtful obviously I'm interested I I've written down a lot of these questions but but I haven't written this one down but it's interesting it feels like you have quite an kind of interesting relationship with the media because in one in some ways you're quite skeptical quite critical certainly of of established media but also you you kind of get hurt by what the media writes and

um you seem you do get your news still from the BBC as you've already said I follow the BC so do you feel you have a kind of a kind of odd relationship with the media yes go on explain no it's it it is somewhat of a love hate Rel relationship although I mean it might be tilted a bit more towards the hate um but uh you know it's uh you know I I I think that this this is a sort of part and parle of having a a free media situation which is that um

you know I do I I do take uh heart in in that the media is actually able to trash me on a regular basis uh in you know in the United States in the UK and whatnot um whereas you know in a lot of other places uh the media cannot say uh mean things to powerful people okay but I think it's better that we have a situation where the media can say uh mean things to powerful people if we're talking about the media let's talk about verification labels you obvious want to create another Revenue stream

that's subscription based is verification the way to do that because we have a kind of a situation at the moment where the New York Times doesn't have a verified badge whereas anyone else who can pay whatever few few bucks a month can is that can that be right is that what you envisaged when you bought Twitter I I must confess to some Delight in removing the verified badge from The New York Times that was that was great um anyway there there still alive and well so uh they're they're doing fine but on a serious note

it could flame disinformation again if you have verified accounts that uh are from anyone who can pay money they simply they go up to potentially uh the top of feeds um they get more action on Twitter and uh traditional media that may not pay for uh verification doesn't do you see how that could potentially be a driver of misinformation well I mean I I I think the media is a driver of misinformation much more than the media would like to admit that they are um I mean that's a different question yeah um but you are

sort of saying like like who who knows best the average citizen or you know uh some someone who who is a journalist um and I think in a lot of cases um it is the average citizen that knows more than than the journalist in fact I mean very often when I see an article about some uh something that I know a lot about and I read the article it's like that they get a lot wrong um and uh you know sort of the best interpretation is there is someone who doesn't really understand what's going on

in industry has only a few facts to play with has to come up with an article it's going to be you know it's not going to it's not going to hit the Bulls Eye um uh so so then like generally this is what how explain to other people if you read an article about something you know about how much in that how accurate is that article now imagine that that is the that is how essentially all artic articles are they they're they're an approximation of what's going on but but not not an exact uh situation

so if somebody's actually let's say uh in the frey or like an expert in the field and uh was actually there and then and writes about their experience of being actually there I I think that actually that that that's uh in a lot of cases going to be better than than a journalist because the journalist wasn't there I think you said the Legacy verified Blu Texs are going to go next week uh been few few deadlines on 420 yeah I I see the joke um the number will never leave me clearly cost it cost you

a lot of money well fortunately it didn't in the trial well yeah right but the for the as you see right yes we're going to ask for a refund yeah okay yeah good luck um let's move on from that but bluti in theory all Legacy blue ticks gone gone gone next week and this is and at that point you'll kind of work out whether this is going to sink or swim yes what's your what's your h i mean you've obviously I think it's going to swim yeah yeah it'll swim just fine okay what are you

looking for in terms of in terms of a revenue stream on that what are your goals well I I I don't know if it's like necessarily a giant Revenue stream um you know CU even if you if you have sort of a million uh people that are subscribed for let's say $100 a year is that's $100 million um and uh that's that's that's a fairly small Revenue stream relative to advertising um but what we're what we're really trying to do here with uh verification is to massively raise the cost of disinformation and and bots in

general um so my prediction is that any social media company that does not uh insist on paid verification will simply be overwhelmed uh by uh Advanced AI Bots I mean chat gpts essentially resilient instances of Chad gbt how do is that really what you want on the platform do you want big news organizations being overwhelmed by bots so they have to pay no the point is you won't be if you pay but a lot of organizations have already said they're not going to pay like the New York Times well then you know that's up to

them if they you know going to make them pay um it's a small amount money so I don't know what what their problem is um so uh but we're going to treat everyone equally so what we're not going to do is say that there's some anointed class uh of journalists who are the special ones who get to tell everyone what their what what they what they should think that it should be up to the people what they think um and even if an article is completely accurate and um comprehensive and everything there's still in in

writing that article the media is choosing the narrative they're they're deciding what to write an article about um so I'm hopeful that that this going to be more a case of the public choosing the narrative as opposed to the media choosing narrative but the media can choose Nar at least at least a combination of the media and the public choosing the narrative um and the the public getting to to weigh in on stories if they if they think that they should add something to it or uh we got something wrong and over time I think

if Twitter is the best source of Truth it will succeed and if and if we are not the best source of Truth we will fail someone comes in and offers you $44 billion for Twitter right now would you take it no would you consider it no why uh well I take it back it depends on who I suppose if I was confident that they would pursue that would they would rigorously pursue the truth um then I then I I guess I guess I would be glad to hand it off to someone else I don't care

about the money really but I I I do want to have some source of truth that I can count on um and and I I hope that's our aspiration with with Twitter is to have you a source of truth that you can count on that's that's it's also real time it's an immediate source of truth that you can count on and that gets more accurate with time as people comment on particular things well if you don't carry the money you could just give it to someone that you that you think is uh you a good

person to run Twitter who do you think that might be I I'm not the boss of Twitter nobody chose well that's you might still have an idea who who could run Twitter yes honestly I have no idea who could run Twitter yeah it's a high job okay let's I mean let's move on to youve said that you were going to um Stand Down chief executive right okay I keep tell you I'm not the CEO of Twitter my dog is the CEO of Twitter okay have you got have you got any it's a great dog other

than the dog it's very alert and it's hard to put get anything by him okay that's good to know other than the dog have you got any successes in mind he's got a black TT turtleneck what more do you need okay all right we're going down that that that route um Steve Jobs or Elizabeth homes are you making reference to I guess more Elizabeth homes okay I forgotten the question now he got a husky voice and uh black don't um PR what were we talking about there yeah who would who who would you want have

you got a successor in mind not yet hopefully at some point right so because you did say you were going to stand down I did stand down okay all right let's move on from that then all right what about this office I'm intrigued about this office you you said it was expensive really newo yeah yeah why can't we be um an anaro syndicalist commune I think Jack Dy kind of recommended doing that you kind of ignored it yeah it was kind of that actually um this office are you thinking about moving out of San Francisco

uh not yet not yet but yeah no I mean this place is nice and uh we we you know I kind of like this office building actually yeah okay so you're not cuz I know you've talked about there's been high levels of crime here you you actually said at one point we should do something about the crime right people are dying right we should take action you've also talked about how potentially I think you might have been joking but you could turn this into a homeless shelter so I guess the reason I'm asking is you

know youve you if we tried to turn into homeless shelter the building building management building owner rejected it you you try to yeah they won't let us which bits which bits have you tried to turn into a homeless shelter we're only using one of the buildings and so the other building could be a homeless shelter and youve tried to yeah we would like to do it right now really yes and no you're being stopped by who by by the building owner they won't let you no in fact they wouldn't even let us take the W

off the sign so how are you going to do that quite quite uh you know what was your what was your plan for the shelter I don't know we could just let people stay there it's nice right okay I I didn't know that they can bring their stuff bring the tent whatever right and it's a roof over their head yeah if the building owner lets us we'll do it yeah so if the building own owner lets you you would you would happily do that yes okay all right there we go um what's the most difficult

thing you've had to do what's the hardest thing you've had to do in my whole life in the last six months we're talking about we're talking about the last six months as your as Twitter B said tw Twitter owner um well shutting down uh our one of our service centers was was quite difficult because it turns out there were u i I thought the service centers were redundant uh but uh there were in fact a lot of things that were hardcoded to this one service center and so when we shut it down we actually uh

it was quite catastrophic we lost a lot of functionality which sort of really rushed to put it back when was that that was around late December J early January so that that was the biggest sort of I'm I'm worried here biggest crisis yeah yeah and what about hard in terms of emotional I mean I mean just letting go I mean what were the current the the levels of staff and what are they now um I think we're um around 1,500 people at this point and there was I think 7800 what what was that say I

I think was around just under 8,000 and 1500 right now okay and has it been hard letting that many people go yeah it's not fun at all it's painful I mean I guess in in what way do you do you feel like you need to speak to people when they when when they leave or I mean sort of physically possible to speak to that many people has that I mean you talked about that being the most technical bit is that has that been sort of the hardest thing emotionally or is is it it's one of

the hardest things certainly yeah yeah um the Nazi Pelosi tweet go the J but there have been that is an example of a few and there have been others um that do do you feel like you're an impulsive person I mean have I shot myself in the foot with tweets multiple times yes do do you feel like I need bulletproof shoes at this point You' I mean you've definitely done on that the issue is that you're now a Twitter owner do you do you feel like you should be look at your tweets more you have

more a higher responsibility when you tweet something out for it to be accurate I think I should not tweet uh after 3:00 a.m. that's the rule yeah well maybe two that's the new rule yeah something like that okay so there's a blanket ban I shouldn't I shouldn't I shouldn't uh what are your Twitter what are your Twitter rules I mean I've heard some people say never tweet when you've been drinking or never tweet when angry what are your Twitter rules well I think those are two good rules yeah don't tweet if you're wasted um and

uh or or you know really upset about something um yeah Pro probably uh I mean a good friend of mine um actually had a good suggestion and it has helped uh which is that uh if you're going to Tweet something that uh maybe is controversial uh save it as a draft and look it it the next day and see if you still want to tweet it and that has been a good rule of thumb okay I've got a bunch of things in my dra folder that I'm glad I didn't send um I can't remember whether

I've asked you this this is my sort of sort of wrapping up at this point but yeah do you do you have any regrets uh I mean I one was like hindsight's 2020 so you know bunch of decisions that could have been made better for sure um um but um I said all is well it ends well um and things are going pretty well so uh in the grand SCH of things I I can't complain okay um I'm going to just check my my list of things to make sure I've actually asked something that people

on the on the Twitter want to say ask you know we can ask them that's on you that's on you I'm W this 680,000 people listening there you go that's a lot that is a lot uh let's see how do we see okay let me see who I I'll just look at my my tweet and uh see what people are saying or what questions they have [Laughter] um do you like the BBC do you like BBC okay yeah we're not going to I can't interview I work for the BBC you like do you like BBC

I know I see what you're doing I'm not going to respond to that okay I think we can finish the interview that if you want if you want to Contin thank you very much I really appreciate sure you like thec come on um I'm not engaging all right Elon it honestly has been a pleasure okay talking to you it really has and if you want if you want to carry on answering questions on on on on this then then go for it but I'm I'm not going to okay well I'm just want to F see

if there's like any you know good there's a lot of comments here um I can imagine um there's so many anyway so it's it's nice to be interviewed by the BBC I have a lot of respect to the British Broadcasting Corporation um when did you say when the when the actual label's going to go public oh is it um is it do we still say State Media or whatever or it says government funded media currently um as opposed to publicly funded media uh I guess probably we can make that change tomorrow if You' like I

it's up it's up to you I'm a journalist it's up to you but we'll expect that tomorrow I mean do you have any requests on a personal level or you can speak on a personal level no I don't okay okay I think we've established that um go what what what what questions are people asking you go on um I mean there's like a lot of comments uh let's see I was literally reading on looking at replies to the you know the fact that I the SP is um are there any good questions that I've missed

out in the last from the last six months I'm sure there are many um I mean people generally seem to like this interview for I can tell um very few negative comments are generally positive is that is that that's probably bad for me I'm scrolling as fast as I can to sort of see uh I guess the the some complaints about Twitter spaces being needing some improvement let's fix Twitter spaces is one of the comments um people like the fact that my dog Floy is a CEO um and uh I'm really just scrolling as fast

as I can here um I I I think my I guess my reflection on this on this in I just like to say I like [Music] BBC I do find it funny um I I I I think I mean honestly if looking listening to the interview the answer about misinformation and saying oh we don't police misinformation in the same way but because we try and get bots because we try and take down Bots we be effective at Bots we got we're actually there's actually less misinformation on the platform no I think that's a big factor

I ask you one more question on that because I don't that is quite a lot of people I think will be listening to this and really you're you're arguing you can police content moderation far less and end up with less misinformation how how first of all we do have we do have uh you know people working on contract contract moderation it's not like we don't um so uh I've spoken to lots of people who've been who've been fired so lot lots of people have been let go I mean you've gone from the censorship the censorship

Bureau was let go um I don't think people the the sort of putting a thumb on the political scales in the far left has been let go because that's not right that's not what you want for a public a Public Square um you know you got to have equal treatment for people from um across the political Spectrum so um you know some of them are going to be upset about that um but I like I said I my my experience is that there's less less less misinformation these days not more um and that the community

notes feature is extremely powerful for uh addressing uh So-Cal misinformation um I mean you've been you've had Community notes placed on your own tweets yes um one of them involving a an alleged diamond mine diamond mine a mine that what diamond mine a mine that that your father part owned yeah my father never owned a a d you're thinking of an emerald Emerald Emerald mine yeah I'd like to see a picture of this alleged Emerald mine because you've been you've been Community noted on that tweet yeah did you know that no but it's he never

owned a a a emerald mine this is total not even a 50% stake no because in community knows first of all okay do you think Emerald do you think do something like an emerald M would would have like um you know uh some sort of property register there'd be like a picture of it it's not like you can say oh that's my mind you know there these things are hardly debated if you've got something valuable um you you have to have some property record like a house but but much more important than a house and

yet there is no property record whatsoever there is no picture of this mine whatsoever it doesn't exist it's fake so that's so it's a really good example then because there is a community note on that tweet that says you said this thing on the xate blah blah blah blah so in that instance the community notes didn't work so you're saying that that's a way of solving misinformation but you're literally saying one of those Community notes it's wrong the community community note may be referring to a thing where uh I I went on a trip with

my father to Zambia um but I never saw any mine or anything so there's no s there's no mine I'm not right but at this point I'm just saying the community note says it so you're saying it's this B great Panacea but yeah it's literally on your own tweet the community notes according to your wrong uh if if they're referencing uh an article then the article may not be wrong but they're still represent anyway the community notes is not going to be perfect but I the it's the batting average of community notes I found to

be extremely high right um so so Community notes Plus getting rid of millions and millions of bots every day I guess that's that's what we're talking about yeah that that that's what you think is tackling misinformation over over content moderation I think I think because I think that's the bit that a lot of people will go re really really yes really look the asset test is people will use the system and find it find it to be a good source of Truth or they don't and no no system is going to be perfect uh in

in its uh pursuit of the truth um but I think I think we can be the best the least uh inaccurate that's our goal the least inaccurate and I think we I I think we might be there already if we're not there we'll be there soon do you have I've I've spoken to people he do this do do you have a a kind of message for people who who think that Twitter has been ruined well we have alltime high usage so I don't think it has been some people think it has been I I'll tell

you that yes well they're probably the same people who predicted that Twitter would would cease to exist and their predictions have turned out to be false okay I I'm not going to ask you why you think has been RAR CU obviously you're not no I think it's great it's way better um better by a lot I