In a wide-ranging interview with BBC News, Elon Musk revealed details about his leadership on Twitter – including his massive stretch and appointing a new “CEO” – his dog.
Elon Musk, 51, acquired the social media company in November, calling himself “Chief Twit” but promising he would appoint new leadership. That never happens, but in an interview with BBC News’ James Clayton on Radio Space, the social media site’s livestreaming event, Musk joked that he had said it.
“I stood down,” he said. “I keep coming, I’m not the CEO of Twitter. My dog is the CEO of Twitter.” In the past, Musk tweeted a photoshopped picture of his dog Floki as CEO.
And while it may sound unorthodox to many, Musk said he sometimes lives at the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. “There is a lab on the seventh floor where no one goes and there is one look and sometimes I sleep there,” he said.
This is nothing new for Musk, who often goes to sleep at Tesla headquarters. Gayle King set up her sleep in Tesla in 2018 — a bench in a conference room — after she told “CBS Morning” that a GoFund was created to “buy Elon someone.” That same year, he told The New York Times that he worked up to 120 hours a week and sometimes took Ambien to sleep.
Speaking to BBC News, Musk said that he hasn’t been on Twitter in five days because he hasn’t been to the headquarters in five days. He also runs Tesla and SpaceX and is one of the richest people in the world. Musk also has nine surviving children, of whom only two are legally adults, three of whom are females.
Elon Musk bought Twitter shares for $44 billion, selling off a lot of his Tesla stock to be able to do so, which he told BBC News he didn’t want to do.
After taking over, Musk immediately laid off a large portion of Twitter’s workforce — about 7,500 people — but said it did not hurt Twitter. He said that those who predicted that it would stop working because too many engineers had left are clearly wrong. “We’re still on Twitter,” he said, referring to the Twitter Spaces platform.
He claimed that drawing the scale was “one of the most difficult things” he had to do. “Not funny at all. Sad,” he said, adding that Twitter now only has 1,500 employees.
According to CBS News Bay Area, the former employees sued Musk over the dismissals, some alleging he reneged on claims he made about their contract and at least one saying they were pulled from proper notice. Not found, which violates California law.
Elon Musk wrote harshly on Radio and mocked empowered employees, including Haraldur Thorleifsson, an employee of Iceland, a business whose company was acquired by Radio, who said he warned anyone before he was fired. K was closed.
Thorleifsson who uses a wheelchair due to a muscular dystrophy and was last year named the People of Iceland for his philanthropic efforts, which have included building wheelchairs across the country – views from Musk.
Musk replied: “The reality is that this person (who is independently wealthy) didn’t do any real work, claimed as his community that he had a disability that compromised his typing, yet Was tweeting a stormy simultaneously. Can’t say I have.” Huge respect to him,” Musk wrote.
He later apologized for that comment, writing: “It was based on things that I was told were untrue or, in some cases, true but not meaningful,” Musk said.
Elon Musk often tweets that are somewhat controversial or offensive and has admitted that he has shot himself in the foot “many times with tweets”.
“I guess I shouldn’t be tweeting after tweeting at 3am,” he said. “If you’re tweeting something that’s maybe controversial, have it cut down as a draft, then go through it the next day and see if you still want to tweet it.”
He also acknowledged that he has been receiving critical criticism, saying that he does not have a “stone-cold heart”.
“If you can’t take the constant attacks and you’re being fed nonstop, including Twitter, it’s tough,” he said of the mean tweets and criticism he’s received. He said, however, that feedback is sometimes necessary, so he does not mute his mentions, or tweets where people mention his Twitter handle.
On the topic of banning TikTok, Musk said he doesn’t use it, but he’s heard people spend most of their time on the video app, which he can’t test because of its privacy and data and is being investigated by the federal government.
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