BBC Interview

why did you agree to do this this interview with the BBC um I don't know I like sponge and easy and uh I don't know 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 forget what the PVC stands for you know but uh [Laughter] you know what it stands for yes I do um so um yeah yeah so there's there's a lot going on um so this might 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 levels uh state of related media 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 we're I mean our goal is simply to have um you know to be as uh truthful and accurate as possible so um I think there's uh I think we're we're adjusting but labeled to be publicly funded which I think is perhaps a not too objectionable we're trying to be accurate uh I'm not the BBC but publicly funded is how the BBC describes it's okay okay so that would be after itself so 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 or there's probably it seems to pass a reasonable reasonably so you're going to change those labels on the BBC Twitter feed yeah and also npls as well yeah yeah all right publicly funded good basically

that's we're trying to get 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 library that nobody goes to uh on the uh seventh floor and uh there's a couch there and I have some I stick there sometimes okay okay um in terms of the general overview the reason why I think we've agreed to do this is because he 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 it's not been boring it's been quite a roller

coaster so um I mean things are going I think you know reasonably well I mean we're we're seeing some all-time highs in terms of total user time so uh we we passed uh 8 billion user minutes per day which is a lot of user minutes um so um yeah that's so usage is out uh growth is good uh beside works mostly 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 head count so I mean you mentioned outages there there have been several and 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 accept that I mean there have been a few outages but uh not

for very long I'm just 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 what makes Twitter work um and we're also doing it with uh uh two data centers instead of three so we used to run have three data centers uh we shut down one of them so we're actually two-thirds of the roughly two-thirds of the prior compute capability uh but we've made so many improvements to the uh core algorithm in some cases we improved the core algorithm by 80 so the actual CPU usage or computer usage is dramatically less so all right but there's also speak for themselves uh the system despite being at all time highs of usage is fast it's responsive it's

more responsive than it was before before the Takeover and we've also added long form tweets we've added uh you can now post videos after two hours and soon videos of any length um we're we're rolling out our subscriber programs so so people can content creators can actually make a living on Twitter by having some of their content behind a paywall um and um we're open source the algorithm so there's transparency about what tweets get shown what 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 Black Box algorithm from some other site or you're going to trust the thing that you can actually see and understand but you do you accept that there are lots of Engineers

that are looking at at the way that Twitter is built and the lack of Engineers because so many have have left and are worried about the health of Twitter well I mean they've 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 yeah rules about death are greatly exaggerated um let's go back six months I mean 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 have a wobble you kind of said I actually don't want to buy Twitter anymore oh no I mean I mean it really is quite entertaining I mean it's like soap opera uh because

when I first made the offer uh the response was the the bordered after a poison pill so they were like hell no you can't buy Twitter we'd rather die we're like chew on cyanide before being being bought that was their initial response and then you said actually I don't want to buy it yes and then 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 than than I'd be bored doesn't that seem odd so I guess my question to you is in terms of you said that you said that the reason was because of Boss because Twitter was filled with Bots look 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 want to get out

of this be honest yeah no no the the problem was that the um publicly stated user numbers were in excess of the real user numbers uh so um I've heard you talk about that yes yes basically looking back at it now was that the only reason that you wanted to put out yes that was literally the issue it's like it's like let's say you um uh buy a warehouse full of goods and you're told that uh less than five percent of the goods in the warehouse are uh have have are broken you know um but then you actually get to where you look into the warehouse and turns out actually 25 of the things broken you'll be like huh that's uh that's not what you said so then you change your mind again and decided to buy it I had to 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 look we're gonna buy this yes really really no I mean like like let's say like I think analogy is pretty pretty close like let's say you know it's like you there's a warehouse four Goods uh they say the warehouse uh less than five percent of what's in the warehouse so it's broken and then you look at you you walk into a warehouse you say actually it's 25 so you you might still want to buy what's the in that warehouse but probably at a lower price not buying the stuff that's broken I didn't have an epiphany you just thought I'm gonna because I'm gonna have to buy this I might as well buy the bullet yeah so then you walk super

complicated right right I'm not sure you've said that before Oh fair enough um so then you you came into two acute whole bunch of court cases you said this in the BBC area so you then came into Twitter with a sink what were your first impressions well I thought wow this is a really nice office building uh and uh expensive yes a very expensive office building um great decor it's lovely place um and um I mean and definitely is spending money like it's going out of fashion which is it isn't quite going out of fashion yet um so the gravity of the situation is perhaps uh not well understood of um at you know at the point where the company the transaction closed uh Twitter was tracking to uh lose uh over three billion dollars a year so uh and had one 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 they also had to borrow quite a lot of money and pay interest on that too well that's why I put away it was a three billion dollar uh run rate so um in rough numbers a normal year Twitter would do your say let's say four and a half billion in Revenue four and a half billion dollars in cost um I mean it was really kind of like a non-profit they'd run it at roughly roughly break even now that's not bankruptcy oh 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 or whatever um so Revenue you know call it dropped by over a third it's not and this is not just Twitter uh you know Facebook and Google have also seen some significant advertising Revenue to clients it was it was a little it's been a little higher Twitter but most of the advertisers are coming back so I think we'll just we'll be back where there's a cyclic demand drop which is still pretty significant um rough numbers a revenue dropped from four and a half billion to three um uh and um expenses went from four and a half to six creating a three billion dollar negative cash flow situation and Twitter having a billion dollars in the bank that's four months to live so unless drastic action was taken immediately this company is going to die let's

talk about that drastic action because almost immediately um you sacked a lot of Twitter workers um yeah 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 it felt a little bit uncaring I wouldn't say uncare the the the the you know the issue is like uh the companies are gonna go bankrupt um or if we do not cut costs immediately um this is not a caring uncaring situation it's like if All Ships sinks so nobody's gonna drive right yeah but a lot of people just lost their jobs like that um and and they went I didn't even know they would they'd lost their jobs often they just let me ask you their accounts 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 no no but this is the criticism and this is the actual this is a little bit of notice uh you know no I understand if you're four months to live 120 days and 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 mean we're talking about around the 200 billion dollar Mark I mean it's not quite you're framing 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 this deal I did not want to sell the Tesla star okay um do you have any regrets on the way that some of the staff were let go uh I mean people were given you know three months of server in

some cases more so um but you know we're like I said the companies need to be run on their own cognizance uh and uh it's it's not it's not so easy for me to sell stock as people might think I have to sell stock during certain periods I can't sell stock during other periods um so there's only they're only brief Windows where I can't sell Tesla stock and then this is often taken as some lack of faith in Tesla and in fact the the Tesla stock sales course the Tesla stock to plummet uh which is not good do you think those two were connected well that that people can couldn't parture the difference between I'm selling Tesla stock because 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 switch Twitter came slim down a lot and then he started making some more policy decisions one of those policy decisions was 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 spoken to him I haven't spoke to him but the point is that Twitter should be uh a Town Square that or that is uh gives uh equal voice to you know 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 pause and politics that are on the very far left of the spectrum San Francisco 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 yeah close to half the country uh voter for Trump I wasn't one of them I voted for Biden um but nonetheless uh you know free speech is meaningless unless you're allow people uh you don't like to say things you don't like otherwise it's relevant um and if at the point of which you lose a free speech it doesn't come back I think the issue some people have is that a lot of people were brought back I mean some people were brought back here were previously banned for spreading things like uh q and on conspiracies you have people like Andrew take who were brought back

who were previously uh banned for things like hate speech do you think you prioritize freedom of speech over misinformation and hate speech well you know who's to say that something something is misinformation um who's the auditor of that is it the BBC and you're literally asking me yes well no you want the Arbiter on Twitter because you own Twitter yes I'm saying 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 missing for me like who is this information can be dangerous that it can cause real world harms that it can potentially cause um yeah so the point of traffic is the BBC itself has at times published things that are false do you agree with that as a card I

I I'm quite sure the BBC have uh said things before that turn out to not be true right it is whatever it is 100 Year history I'm questions even if you aspire to be accurate there are times when you you will not be I think underground aspire to be accurate but you accept it 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 a monthly 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 cannot Advocate murdering someone that's illegal in the United States they're everywhere really I suspect so uh so there are limits to speech

um I mean I guess taking your argument to a logical 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 less these days because we we've eliminated so many of the Bots which were pushing scams and spam and previously previous management turned a blind eye to to the wife because their bonuses were tied to user growth and if you vote if you're if your conversation 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 block problem that we used to do and we also have given a lot of attention to community notes which corrects

with Community itself corrects misinformation has been very effective um I mean 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 are 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 show you're talking about I mean you use Twitter right do you see a rise in hate speech I mean just a personal anecdote like what do you do I don't but 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 the rest of Twitter you've seen 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 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 banned no is that what you're saying I'm not saying anything I'm just curious I'm trying to understand what you mean by hateful content I'm asking for specific examples um and if and you just said that if something is slightly sexist that's hateful content 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 I can you name one example I I honestly don't need I I honestly I can't name a single example I'll tell you why because I don't actually use that for you feed anymore because I just don't particularly like it but you said a lot of people a lot of people are quite similar I I only I need to come on a second you said you've seen more hitful 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 then how did you see the headboard contact 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're for

you hateful content I'm asking for one example right you can't give a simple one and and I'm saying I I say so that you don't know what you're talking about really yes because you can't be a single example of hateful content not even one tweet and yet you're claimed that the hateful content was high well that's a false no what I could just lied what no no what I claim was uh there are many uh organizations that say that that kind of information is on the rise now whether whether it has maybe one example I mean right and literally someone like this the Strategic dialogue uh Institute in the U in the UK they will say that so people will say all sorts of nonsense I'm literally asking for a single example and you can't name one right and as I already said

I don't use that feed but how would you know I don't think this is getting anything you literally said you experienced more hateful content and then couldn't name a single example right and as I said that's absurd I haven't I haven't actually looked at that feeder then how would you know this beautiful 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 well covert misinformation you've changed the code with misinformation has BBC changes coveredness information the BBC does not set the rules on Twitter so I'm asking you no I'm talking about what the BBC's misinformation about covet I'm I'm just asking you about you change the labels the covert misinformation

labels there used to be a policy and then it then disappeared why do that covert is no longer an issue does the BBC uh hold itself at all responsible for misinformation regarding masking 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 the editorial policy are you aware of that this is a this is not an interview about the BBC oh you thought it wasn't and I see now lived on 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 all right 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 Narendra Modi and his leadership during the riots and Gujarat 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 don't know if I don't know about that that you know what exactly happened with some content situation in India that there was an idea 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 you get the 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 is that all right I'm not CEO anymore okay you're a chief sweat or what are you no my dog Floki is the secret okay um he's taken over I I saw that yeah um okay so so Tech talk has also been in the news there's talk of you have to buy the administration wanting to potentially ban it or or force a sale what what's your view of the situation I don't really use tick tock um I mean one of the reasons that I emphasize that the uh I thought our goal here at Twitter is to maximize uh unregretted user minutes or unregarded user time is that I hear many people tell me they spent a lot of time on Tick Tock 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 unregretted where you learned things you were entertained amused um I mean frankly I I you know I I get to more uh laughs out of Twitter than anything else and many people tell me the same thing so that's a good sign for for tick tock itself like I said I just don't know enough about what's going on there um I can't say I have a strong opinion on tick tock so you have an opinion on whether it should be banned or not you know I'm generally against Banning things um so I I probably not be in favor I mean it would it would help Twitter I suppose if Tick Tock was banned uh because then people would spend more time on Twitter unless I'm a tick tock but even though that would be that

even if it would have helped 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 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 realized I look very comfortable um uh yeah I mean Tesla has 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's like uh you know operates in China doesn't it was bad in China so um and certainly

I've received no no communication whatsoever from the Chinese government with regard to Twitter okay um in terms of advertising obviously the Twitter is not a private company anymore so we don't really know how it's 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 before you feed right I mean I'm sorry in the following actually don't use for you because it sucks rightly filled with hate speech I'm told um that's not what I said okay well why don't you use for you what's wrong with it um how is it going is twittering profit now no Twitter is uh uh rough I'd say we're roughly break even at this point and I think you've said before you 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 okay to be more precise we could be cash flow positive uh this quarter if things keep going well this quarter as soon as that I possibly yeah wow um and do you have a message for the advertising 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 training towards coming back but there are some that just can't jump in the water's warm it's great that's

your message to the to the advertisers they haven't come back yeah I mean look uh you know 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 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 don't necessarily like you here yeah but you know I have to say it I was wrong he was wrong I guess the uh because I was acquitted uh by the San Francisco

jury unanimously so yeah but I guess but look do you have any regrets about buying Twitter um I think it was something that needed to be done um difficult you know I'd say that 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 uh you know over the last several months not not an easy one I I'm a bit apart from the pain I mean so it's been quite painful um but I think uh at the end of the day it should have been done I think it's not where the many mistakes made along the way of course you know um and uh but you know all's well it ends well and so I I feel like we're headed to a good place um you know where roughly break even I think we're trending towards

being kind of flow positive very soon like literally in a matter 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 was made 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 you actually tweeted uh I think in February you said the last three months have been extremely tough I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone okay are you talking emotionally there I mean can you can you explain

oh there wasn't started or anything right right like some people around Europe says dangerous neck of the woods were in it is it can be but just can you just talk 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 non-stop including through Twitter um that uh it's rough you know um not at the end of the day I kind of think that like if you do lose your feedback loop that's that's actually not good um so uh you know 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 removed my entire block list so I don't block anyone either um so so somebody can you know so I get like a lot of negative feedback um but I think it's actually good to get negative feedback right when you talk about the the emotional strain you've gone back to feedback 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 non-stop stories about why you're a horrible person I mean it's you know um it's uh hurtful obviously I 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 a kind of interesting relationship with the media because in one in some ways you're quite skeptical quite critical

certainly of established media but also you kind of get hurt by what the media writes and um did you get your news still from the BBC as you've already said I literally followed abuse right right Etc so do you feel you have a kind of a kind of odd relationship with the media yes and explain no it is somewhat of a love-hate relationship although I mean it might be tilted a bit more towards the head [Laughter] um but uh you know it's uh you know I I think this this is a sort of part and parcel of having a a free media situation which is that um you know I do I do take uh heart again and 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

Vita 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 enables you obviously want to create another Revenue stream that's subscription based it's 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 whatever a few few bucks a month yeah can is that can that be right is that what you've envisaged when you bought Twitter I I must confess to some Delight in removing the verified batch from The New York Times that was that was great um anyway they're 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 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 so 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 not it's going to be you know it's not going to it's not gonna hit the bullseye um uh so so then like generally this is what how expensive if you read an article about something you know about how much of that how accurate is that article now imagine that that is that is how or essentially all articles are they they're an approximation of what's going on but but not in a not an exact uh situation so if somebody is actually

let's say uh in The Fray 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 a journalist because the journalist wasn't there I think you said the Legacy verified blue techs are going to go next week uh there have been a few few deadlines before 4 20.

yeah I I see the joke um clearly yeah it costs you a lot of money well fortunately it didn't in the trial well yeah right but they fit it as you say right yes we're going to ask for a refund yeah okay yeah good luck let's move on from that but blue sex in theory all Legacy blue ticks 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 hatch I mean you've obviously I think it's good yeah yeah it'll swim just fine okay what are you looking for in terms of in terms of a revenue stream on that whatever goals well I I don't know if it's like necessarily a giant Revenue stream um you know because even if you if you have sort of a million uh people that are subscribed for

let's say 100 a year ish that's a hundred million dollars um and uh that's that's a that's a fairly small Revenue stream relative to advertising um but what we're really trying to do here with verification is to massively raise the cost of this information and and bots in general so my prediction is that any social media company that does not uh insist on paid verification will simply be overwhelmed uh by Advanced AI Bots I mean chat gbt is essentially a zillion instances of chat gbt really what you want on the platform do you want big news organizations being overwhelmed by bots so that they have to go the point is that 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 go make them pay um it's a small amount of money so I don't know 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 of journalists who are the special ones who get to tell everyone what they're 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 if they're still in in writing that article the media is choosing the narrative they're deciding what to write an article about um so I'm hopeful that this can be more a case of the public choosing the narrative as opposed to the media choosing narrative but the media

can choose 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 there's they should add something to it or if we've 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 no why uh well as 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 if some source of truth that I can count on um and and I I hope that's our aspiration with Twitter is to have you know a source of truth that you can count on oh 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 particularly with that well if you don't care about the money you could just give it to someone that you that you think is a good person to run Twitter who do you think that might be I I'm not the boss of Twitter nobody choose well that's you might still have an idea who could run Twitter yes honestly I have no idea who could run Twitter yeah it's a hard job okay let's I mean let's move on to that you've said that you were going

to um Stand Down chief executive right okay I can tell you I'm not the CEO of Twitter my dog is the CEO okay have you got any it's a great dog other than the story 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 success you've got a black a turtle turtleneck or what would you need [Laughter] what were we talking about there uh yeah who would you 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 out well I did stand out okay all right let's move on from that then all right what about this office I'm intrigued about this office you've said it was even expensive you're really new yeah yeah why can't we be um in

an awkward or something called this commune I think Jack Dorsey kind of recommended doing that and kind of ignored it yeah it was kind of bad actually hmm um this office are you thinking about moving out of San Francisco uh not yet not yet but yeah no this place is nice and uh we you know I kind of like this obstacle actually yeah okay so you're not because I know you've talked about there's been high levels of crime here you actually said it I think we should do something about the crime right because 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 yeah I guess the reason I'm asking is you know you've you've if we've tried to turn

into a homeless shot in the building The Bullying management was well the owner rejected it you tried it yeah they won't let us we're only using one of the buildings and so the other building could be a homeless shelter and you've tried to yeah we would like to do it right now really yes and no then you're being stopped by who by the building owner they weren't like No in fact they wouldn't even let us take the W off the sign so how are you going to do that really 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 heads yeah it's the wedding owner lets us we'll

do it yeah so if the building only that 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 talk about the last six months as you as Twitter boss said Twitter owner um well shutting down uh our one of our service centers was was quite difficult because it turns out there were I thought the service centers were redundant but they were in fact a lot of things that were hard-coded to this one server 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 when I was around

late December during early January so that was the biggest sort of I'm I'm worried the biggest crisis yeah yeah and what about hard in terms of emotion I mean I mean there's Letting Go I mean what what were the current the levels of stuff and what are they now um I think we're um around 1500 people at this point and there was I think 7 800.

what was it so I think it was around just under eight thousand eight thousand fifteen hundred right now okay and it has it been hard letting up that many people go yeah 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 it's not physically possible to speak to that many people has that I mean you talked about that being the most technical bit is that has has that been sort of the hardest thing emotionally or is it it's one of the hardest things certainly yeah yeah um the Nancy Pelosi tweet but there have been that is an example of a film there have been others um do you feel like you're an impulsive person I mean have I shot myself in the foot with tweets

multiple times yes do you feel like I need bulletproof shoes at this point I mean you've definitely done that the issue is that you're now Twitter owner 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 3am that's the new rule yeah something like that okay so there's a blanket ban I should I shouldn't I shouldn't uh what I like your Twitter what are your Twitter rules I mean I've had 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 you know really upset about something um yeah probably

uh I mean a good friend of mine um actually had a good suggestion it has helped uh which is that uh if you're gonna tweet something that uh maybe is controversial uh you save it as a draft and look at it the next day and see if you still want to tweeted and that has been a good rule with them okay we've got a bunch of things 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 have any regrets uh I mean we're always like hindsight's 2020 so there's you know a bunch of decisions that could have been made better for sure um but um as I said all's well it ends well um and things are going pretty well so uh in the grand scheme of things I I can't complain okay um I'm gonna

just check my my list of things to make sure I've actually I mean it's maybe there's something we've got people on the on the Twitter once you say ask you know we could ask them that's all new that's on you it's 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'll just look at my my tweet and uh see what people are saying or what questions I have um [Laughter] do you like the BBC do you like BBC okay yeah we're not gonna oh I can't interview you said what for the BBC well baby 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 you can finish the interview if you want to continue thank you very much I really appreciate it you're sure

you like PVC come on um I'm not engaging here 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 I'm not going to okay well I just wanted to 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 what did you say when the when the actual label is going to go public oh is it um is it do we still say State media whatever oh it says government-funded media currently um as opposed to publicly funded media well I guess probably we can make that change tomorrow if you'd like it's

up to you but I mean you can see 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 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 look at replies to the you know the fact that the space is um are there any good questions that I've missed out in the last in the last six months I'm sure there are many um I mean people generally seem to like this interview for a hotel um for a few negative comments so generally positive is that is that that's probably bad for me [Laughter] see uh I guess there's some complaints about Twitter spaces being needing some improvement

let's fix Twitter spaces as one of the comments um people like the fact that my dog Loki is the CEO um and uh I'm really just scrolling as fast as I can here um I I actually known this I just like to say I like BBC [Music] I do find it funny um 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 as we try and get this because we try and take down Bots will be effective at Bots we're actually there's actually less misinformation on the platform no I think that's a big factor a lot of people I think will be listening to this I'm sure 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 a lot lots of people have been let go I mean you've gone from eight yeah the censorship Bureau was let go um I don't think 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've got to have equal treatment for people from um across the political Spectrum so um you know something we're going to be upset about that um but like I said my my experience is that there's less less misinformation these days not more um and that the community notes

feature is extremely powerful for uh addressing uh so-called misinformation um diamond mine diamond mine I mine the one a mind that your father part owned yeah my father never owned a bird 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 yeah did you know that no but it's he he never owned a a emerald mine this is probably not even a 50 steak no because in community no first of all okay do you think Emerald do you think something like 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 these things are hotly 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 was no picture of this mine whatsoever it doesn't exist it's fake so that's you know on that tweet that says you said this thing on the X day blah blah blah so in that instance the the Keynotes 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 is wrong it's in 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 such it's there's no mine I'm not right but at this point I'm just saying the community note says it is so you're saying it's this big

great Panacea but yeah it's literally on your own tweet the community notes according to you're wrong uh if if they're referencing um an article then the article may not be wrong but there's a communist is not going to be perfect but it's the batting average of community notes I found to be extremely high um so Community next 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 this information over over content moderation I think I think because I think that's the bit that a lot of people will go really really yes really look the asset test is people 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 who think next do you have a a kind of message for people who who think that Twitter has been ruined well we have all-time high usage so I don't think it has been yes well they're probably the same people who predicted that Twitter would cease to exist and their predictions have turned out to be false I know I'm not going to ask you whether it's been ruined because obviously no I think it's great it's way better by a lot all right [Music] thank you foreign [Music]