BBC Interview 12 avril 2023 L'interview en direct conflictuelle de Musk à la BBC avec James Clayton sur les licenciements chez Twitter, la désinformation et la modération des contenus.
L'interview en direct conflictuelle de Musk à la BBC avec James Clayton sur les licenciements chez Twitter, la désinformation et la modération des contenus.
Transcription BBC Interviewer
Why did you agree to do this, this interview with the BBC?
Elon Musk
I don't know. I like spontaneity and I don't know, there's a lot going on and it seems like I actually do have a lot of respect for the BBC, although sometimes I forget what the BBC stands for. You know, what is it?
BBC Interviewer
Just kidding. You know what it stands for?
Elon Musk
Yes, I do. So, yeah. So there's a lot going on. So I thought this might be a good opportunity to answer some questions and I guess maybe get some feedback too. What should we be doing different? I know the BBC, for example, is not thrilled about being labeled state affiliated media.
BBC Interviewer
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?
Elon Musk
Yeah, yeah. So we're, I mean, our goal is simply to have, you know, to be as truthful and accurate as possible. So I think there's, I think we're adjusting the label to be publicly funded, which I think is perhaps not too objectionable. We're trying to be accurate.
BBC Interviewer
I'm not the BBC bet. Publicly funded is how the BBC describes it.
Elon Musk
Okay, okay. So that would be accurate. 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. It's probably, it seems to pass a reasonable, reasonable.
BBC Interviewer
So you're going to change those labels on the BBC Twitter feed?
BBC Interviewer
And also NPR's as well.
Elon Musk
Yeah, yeah. Publicly funded, basically. We're trying to be as accurate as possible.
BBC Interviewer
Okay, yeah. All right, fine. First of all, I just want to clear something up. Are you sleeping in the office here?
Elon Musk
I sometimes sleep in the office. Like in the library.
BBC Interviewer
Five days a week?
Elon Musk
No, no, three days a week. I'm not here five days a week. But there's a library that nobody goes to on many years. Seventh floor. And there's a couch there and I sleep there sometimes. Okay.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. In terms of the general overview, the reason why I think you've agreed to do this is because you wanted to talk about the first six months as chief executive owner of Twitter.
Elon Musk
Yes. Kind of like whatever you want to talk about.
BBC Interviewer
Right. So how do you think it's gone?
Elon Musk
Well, it's not been boring, it's been quite a roller coaster. So, I mean, things are going, I think reasonably well. I mean, we've seen some all time highs in terms of total user time. So we passed 8 billion user minutes per day, which is lot of user minutes. So usage is up, growth is good. The site works mostly a few glitches here and there, but the site is working fairly well and we're doing it with a small fraction of the original headcount. So.
BBC Interviewer
So I mean, you mentioned outages that 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?
Elon Musk
I mean, there have been a few outages, but not for very long and it's currently working fine.
BBC Interviewer
So you don't, you don't, it doesn't keep you up at night that Twitter might go offline again?
Elon Musk
At this point, I think we've got a pretty good handle on what makes Twitter work. And we're also doing it with two data centers instead of three. So we used to have three data centers. We shut down one of them. So we're actually two thirds of the roughly 2/3 of the prior compute capability. But we've made so many improvements to the core algorithm. In some cases we improved the core algorithm by 80%. So the actual CPU usage or computer usage is dramatically less so. But the results speak for themselves. The system, despite being at all time highs of usage, is fast, it's responsive, it's more responsive than it was before the takeover. And we've also added long form tweets. We've added you can now post videos up to two hours and videos of any length. We're rolling out our subscriber program so people can. Content creators can actually make a living on Twitter by having some of their content behind a paywall. And we open source the algorithm so there's transparency about what tweets get shown, what content gets shown versus not. I think you said, like what are you really going to trust? Are you going to trust some sort of black box algorithm from some other site or are you going to trust the thing that you can actually see and understand?
BBC Interviewer
Do you accept that there are lots of engineers that are looking at the way that Twitter is built and the lack of engineers because so many have left and are worried about the health of Twitter?
Elon Musk
Well, I mean there have been 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 saying rumors about death are greatly exaggerated.
BBC Interviewer
Let's go back six months.
Elon Musk
I mean we're literally on Twitter right now, right? So it must work.
BBC Interviewer
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.
Elon Musk
I mean. I mean, it really is quite entertaining. I mean, it's like soap opera. Because when I first made the offer, the response was 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 bought, was their initial response.
BBC Interviewer
And then you said, actually, I don't want to buy it. Yes.
Elon Musk
And then they said, no, you must buy us. Guns of the head. You have to buy us. I'm like, are you the same people who said you'd rather die than be bored? Doesn't that seem odd?
BBC Interviewer
So I guess my question to you is, in terms of. You said that the reason was because of bots, because Twitter was filled with bots. 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 want to get out of this. Be honest.
Elon Musk
Yeah. No, no. The problem was that the publicly stated user numbers were in excess of the real user numbers. So
BBC Interviewer
I've heard you talk about that.
BBC Interviewer
Basically, looking back at it now, was that the only reason that you wanted to pull out?
Elon Musk
Yes, that was literally the issue. It's like, let's say you buy a warehouse full of goods and you're told that less than 5% of the goods in the warehouse are broken. You know, but then you actually get the warehouse. You look into the warehouse, and turns out, actually 25% of the things broken, you'd be like, huh, that's so what you said.
BBC Interviewer
So then you change your mind again and decided to buy it. Did you do that? Did you do that?
Elon Musk
I kind of had to.
BBC Interviewer
Right. Did you do that because you thought that a court would make you do that?
Elon Musk
Yes. Right. Yes, that is the reason. Right.
BBC Interviewer
So you were still trying to get out of it, and then you just were advised by lawyers, look, we're gonna buy this.
BBC Interviewer
Interesting. So you.
BBC Interviewer
So you. So you didn't. You didn't actually want to purchase it even when you said you were going,
Elon Musk
well, not at that price? 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 like you. There's a warehouse full of goods. They say the warehouse less than 5% of what's in the warehouse is broken. And then you look at, you walk into warehouse, say, actually it's 25%. So, you know, you might still want to buy what's in that warehouse, but probably at a lower price, not buying the stuff that's broken.
BBC Interviewer
So you didn't have an epiphany. You just thought, I'm going to, I'm going to have to buy this. I might as well buy the bullet.
Elon Musk
Yeah. So then you walk super complicated. Right, Right.
BBC Interviewer
I'm not sure you've said that before.
Elon Musk
Oh, fair enough.
BBC Interviewer
So then you, you came into queue,
Elon Musk
a whole bunch of court cases. You said this in the BBC, AVO, etc.
BBC Interviewer
So you then came into Twitter with a sink. What were your first impressions?
Elon Musk
Well, I thought, wow, this is a really nice office building. And expensive. Yes, very expensive office building. Great decor. It's a lovely place. And I mean, and definitely is spending money like it's going out of fashion, which it isn't quite going out of fashion yet. So the gravity of the situation is perhaps not well understood. Of at the point which the company, the transaction closed, Twitter was tracking to lose over $3 billion a year 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 intense.
BBC Interviewer
You know, you also had to borrow quite a lot of money and pay interest on that too.
Elon Musk
Well, that's why. Part of why it was a $3 billion run rate. So in rough numbers, a normal year, Twitter would do, say, let's say four and a half billion in revenue, four and a half billion dollars in cost. I mean, it was really kind of like a nonprofit. They'd run it at roughly, roughly break even.
BBC Interviewer
That's not a bank. That's not bankruptcy. You're not saving that company from bankruptcy. It's breaking even.
Elon Musk
But then the issue is that if you then add a billion and a half dollars in debt servicing and have a massive drop in revenue, which we did, which was partly cyclic and partly political concerns and whatever. So revenue call it dropped by over a third. Not just Twitter, you know, Facebook and Google have also seen some significant advertising revenue declines. 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 drop, which is still pretty significant. But in rough numbers. Revenue dropped from four and a half billion to three and expenses went from four and a half to six, creating a $3 billion 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.
BBC Interviewer
Let's talk about that drastic action, because almost immediately you sacked a lot of Twitter workers. And I spoke to them. It's very easy to speak to them when it happened. And the way they said, pretty much everyone said is that it felt quite. Quite haphazard.
BBC Interviewer
It felt a little bit uncaring.
Elon Musk
I wouldn't say uncaring. You know, the issue is like the company's either going to go bankrupt or if we do not cut costs immediately. This is not a caring, uncaring situation. It's like if all ship sinks, then nobody's going to drop.
BBC Interviewer
Right? But a lot of people just lost their jobs like that. And they weren't. They didn't even know they would. They'd lost their jobs. Often they just. They were just ask, 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 this is the criticism and this is what actual. This is what, a little bit of notice, you know, Now I understand if
Elon Musk
you have four months to live, 120 days. In 120 days, you're dead. So how. So what do you want to do?
BBC Interviewer
How much she was.
BBC Interviewer
But I mean, we're talking about around the $200 billion mark. I mean, it's not quite. You're framing it in. In a way that, you know, that it had had a few months to live. Quite a rich man.
Elon Musk
I sold a lot of Tesla stock to close this deal. I did not want to sell a Tesla stock.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. Do you have any regrets on the way that some of the staff were let go?
Elon Musk
I mean, people were given, you know, three months of severance, some cases more so. But, you know, like I said, the companies need to be run on their own cognizance. And 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. 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 Tesla stock sales caused the Tesla stock to plummet, which was not good.
BBC Interviewer
Do you think those two were connected?
Elon Musk
Well, people couldn't. Partial 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.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. And then after that, after you let go of a lot of stuff, obviously Twitter came slimmed 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.
BBC Interviewer
Do you expect him to come back at any point? Like, have you. Have you spoken to him?
Elon Musk
I haven't spoken to him. I don't know. He may or may not come back. But the point is that Twitter should be a town square that gives equal voice to the whole country and ideally the whole world. It should not be a partisan politics and more of a partisan politics that are on the very far left of the spectrum. San Francisco, both Berkeley politics normally is quite niche, but Twitter effectively acted as a megaphone for very niche regional politics and megaphoned out to the world. So in order for something to serve as digital town square, it must, you know, serve all people from all political persuasions. Providence. It's legal. So close to half the country voted for Trump. I wasn't one of them. I voted for Biden. But nonetheless, free speech is meaningless unless you allow people you don't like to say things you don't like. Otherwise it's irrelevant. And if at the point at which you lose free speech, it doesn't come back.
BBC Interviewer
I think the issue some people have is that a lot of people were brought back, I mean, some people were bought back who were previously banned for spreading things like QAnon conspiracies. You have people like Andrew Tate who were brought back, who were previously banned for things like hate speech. Do you think you prioritize freedom of speech over misinformation and hate speech?
Elon Musk
Well, you know, who's to say that something is misinformation? Who is the arbiter of that? Is it the BBC?
BBC Interviewer
You're literally asking me.
BBC Interviewer
Well, no, you are the arbiter on Twitter because you own Twitter.
Elon Musk
Yes, I'm saying, who is to say that one person's misinformation is another person's information? The point at which you said that there is this is misinformation.
BBC Interviewer
Like who is Misinformation can be dangerous, that it can cause real world harms that it can potentially cause.
Elon Musk
Yes. So the point I'm trying to make is the BBC itself has at times published things that are false. Do you agree that that has occurred?
BBC Interviewer
I'm quite sure the BBC have said things before that turn out to not be true.
BBC Interviewer
It is, whatever it is, 100 year history. I'm quite.
Elon Musk
Yes. Even if you aspire to be accurate, there are times when you will not be. I think in the grand scheme we've seen does aspire to be accurate.
BBC Interviewer
But you accept there has to be a line in terms of hate speec. I mean, you're not looking at total 100% unrestricted speech.
Elon Musk
There's. Well, I mean, I generally am of the opinion that 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. Everywhere really. I suspect so. So there are limits to speech.
BBC Interviewer
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?
Elon Musk
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 and previous management turned a blind eye to the bot because their bonuses were tied to user growth. And if you, if your compensation is tied to user growth, 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 misinformation because 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. It's been very effective.
BBC Interviewer
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 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, particularly around hate speech in the company. What hate speech are you talking about?
Elon Musk
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?
BBC Interviewer
I don't personally, my. 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 the rest of, for the rest of Twitter.
Elon Musk
You see more hate speech?
BBC Interviewer
Personally, I would say I would see more hateful content in that, in that
Elon Musk
content you don't like or. Hateful. What do you mean? Describe a hateful thing?
BBC Interviewer
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.
Elon Musk
So you think if something is slightly sexist, it should be banned?
Elon Musk
Is that what you're saying?
BBC Interviewer
I'm not saying anything. I'm saying.
Elon Musk
I'm just curious. I'm trying to understand what you mean by hateful content. And I'm asking for specific examples. And if. And you just said that if something is slightly sexist, that's hateful content, does that mean that it should be bad?
BBC Interviewer
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.
Elon Musk
That's why I'm asking for examples. Can you name one example?
BBC Interviewer
I honestly don't. Honestly.
Elon Musk
You can't name a single example.
BBC Interviewer
I'll tell you why, because I don't actually use that for you feed anymore because I just don't particularly like it. A lot of people, A lot of people are quite similar. I only.
Elon Musk
Look, you said you've seen more hateful content, but you can't name a single, single example. Not even one.
BBC Interviewer
I'm not sure I've used that feed for the last three or four weeks and I.
Elon Musk
Well, then how did you see the hateful content?
BBC Interviewer
Because I've been, I've been using. I've been using Twitter since you've taken it over for the last six months.
Elon Musk
Okay, so then you must have at some point seen that you. For your hateful content. I'm asking for one example.
Elon Musk
You can't give a single one.
BBC Interviewer
And I'm saying.
Elon Musk
Then I say so that you don't know what you're talking about.
Elon Musk
Yes, because you can't be a single example of hateful content. Not even one tweet. And yet you claimed that the Hippo content was high. Well, that's a false.
BBC Interviewer
No, what I claim.
BBC Interviewer
No, what I claim was there are many organizations that say that that kind of information is on the rise now, whether it has a Microsoft.
Elon Musk
Give me one example.
BBC Interviewer
I mean, right, someone like the Strategic Dialogue Institute in the uk, they will say that.
Elon Musk
So look, people will say all sorts of nonsense. I'm literally asking for a single example and you can't name one. Right.
BBC Interviewer
And as I already said, I don't use that feed.
Elon Musk
But how would you know?
BBC Interviewer
I don't think this is getting anywhere.
Elon Musk
You literally said you experienced more hateful content and then couldn't name A single example.
BBC Interviewer
Right. And as I said, that's absurd. I haven't. I haven't actually looked at that feed.
Elon Musk
Then how would you know this hateful content?
BBC Interviewer
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. Well, Covid misinformation. You've changed the COVID misinformation.
Elon Musk
Has BBC changed this Covid misinformation?
BBC Interviewer
The BBC does not set the rules on Twitter. So I'm asking you.
Elon Musk
No, I'm talking about the BBC's misinformation about COVID
BBC Interviewer
I'm asking you about. You change the labels. The COVID misinformation labels. There used to be a policy and then disappeared. Why do that?
Elon Musk
Covid is no longer an issue. Does the BBC 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 its editorial policy? Are you aware of that?
BBC Interviewer
This is. This is not an interview about the BBC.
Elon Musk
Oh, you thought it wasn't.
BBC Interviewer
And 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.
Elon Musk
I'm talking about.
BBC Interviewer
All right, let's. Let's. Let's talk about. Talk about something else.
Elon Musk
You weren't expecting that.
BBC Interviewer
Let's talk about something else. Narendra Modi. The BBC did a documentary about Narendra Modi and his leadership during the riots in Gujarat. We then believe that some of those. Some of that content was taken off Twitter. Was that at the behest of the Indian government?
Elon Musk
I'm not aware of that particular situation.
BBC Interviewer
So you're just. You're not sure?
Elon Musk
I don't know. I don't know about that. You know, what exactly happened with some content situation in India? The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict. And we can't go beyond the laws of a country.
BBC Interviewer
But do you get that if you do that, you incentivize countries around the world to simply pass more draconian laws?
Elon Musk
No. Look, if we have a choice of either our people go to prison or we comply with the laws, we will comply with the laws. The same goes for the BBC.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. Okay. Since you became CEO, there's been another story in town.
Elon Musk
I'm not CEO. Anymore.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. You're Chief Twitter, or what are you?
Elon Musk
No, my dog Floki is the CEO.
Elon Musk
He's taken over.
BBC Interviewer
I saw that. Yes. Okay. So TikTok has also been in the news. There's talk of perhaps the Biden administration wanting to potentially ban it or. Or force a sale. What's your view of the situation?
Elon Musk
I don't really use TikTok. I mean, one of the reasons I emphasize that the. That our goal here at Twitter is to maximize unregretted user minutes or unregarded user time is that I hear many people tell me they spent a lot of time on TikTok, 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. I mean, frankly, I get more laughs out of Twitter than anything else, and many people tell me the same thing, so that's a good sign for TikTok itself. Like I said, I just don't know enough about what's going on there. I can't say I have a strong opinion on TikTok.
BBC Interviewer
So you have an opinion on whether it should be banned or not?
Elon Musk
You know, I'm generally against banning things, so I'd probably not be in favor. I mean, it would help Twitter, I suppose, if TikTok was banned, because then people would spend more time on Twitter and less time on TikTok. But even though that would be. That, even if it would help Twitter, I would be generally against banning of things.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. 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. 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.
Elon Musk
Do I look uncomfortable? Actually, I do. I look uncomfortable?
Elon Musk
I mean, Tesla's got activities around the world and so does SpaceX. You know, once in a while, those things do come into conflict. But it's not like Twitter is like, you know, operates in China, doesn't it Was banned in China, so. Certainly I perceive no communication whatsoever from the Chinese government with regard to Twitter.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. In terms of advertising, obviously 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?
Elon Musk
Not all, but most. You can see it for yourself on Twitter, even in the. For you feed.
BBC Interviewer
Sorry, in the following don't use for
Elon Musk
your because it sucks. Right. Filled with hate speech, I'm told.
BBC Interviewer
That's not what I said. Okay, fine.
Elon Musk
Well, why don't you use 4U? What's wrong with it?
BBC Interviewer
How is it going? Is Twitter in profit now?
Elon Musk
No, Twitter is rough. I'd say we're roughly break even at this point.
BBC Interviewer
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?
Elon Musk
I mean, depending on how things go, if current trends continue, I think we could be profitable. Or, I mean, to be more precise, we could be cash flow positive this quarter if things keep going well this quarter.
BBC Interviewer
As soon as that Possibly, yeah.
BBC Interviewer
And do you have a message for the advertiser? I mean, can you say which advertisers haven't come back?
Elon Musk
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.
BBC Interviewer
Can you say any of the exceptions?
Elon Musk
I actually don't know of anyone who said definitively they're not coming back. They're all sort of trending towards coming back.
BBC Interviewer
But there are some that just jump
Elon Musk
in, the water's warm, it's great.
BBC Interviewer
That's your message to the advertisers who haven't come back?
Elon Musk
Yeah. I mean, look, you know, if Disney feels comfortable advertising children's movies and Apple feels comfortable advertising iPhones, those are good indicators that Twitter is a good place to advertise.
BBC Interviewer
I want to talk about if you have any regrets. And, you know, I think you were booed at a Dave Chappelle concert. I think your own lawyers.
BBC Interviewer
A little? Well, some say a little, some say a bit more. 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.
Elon Musk
Yeah, but, you know, I was wrong. He was wrong. I guess the. Because I was acquitted by the San Francisco jury unanimously. So.
BBC Interviewer
But I guess. But look, do you have any regrets buying Twitter?
Elon Musk
I think it was something that needed to be done. You said it quite difficult. You know, I'd say that like the pain level of Twitter. Twitter has been extremely high. This hasn't been some sort of party. So it's been really quite a stressful situation, you know, the last several months. Not an easy one, but apart from the pain, I mean. So it's been quite painful, but I think at the end of the day, it should have been done. I think Were there many mistakes made along the way? Of course, you know, and, but you know, all swell. It ends well. And so I feel like we're headed to a good place. You know, we're roughly break even. I think we're trending towards being cash flow positive very soon. Like literally in a matter of months. The advertisers are returning the. I think the quality of recommended tweets has improved significantly and we've taken a lot of feedback from people that have looked at the open source recommendation algorithm and we've, we've made a lot of improvements 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
BBC Interviewer
actually something I was going to ask you. You mentioned the pain, but you actually tweeted, I think in February. You said the last three months have been extremely tough. I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone. Are you talking emotionally there? I mean, can you explain.
Elon Musk
I wasn't stabbed or anything.
BBC Interviewer
Right, right.
Elon Musk
Like some people around here, which is dangerous, neck of the woods were in.
BBC Interviewer
It is, or can be. But just, can you just talk me through the emotional strain of this?
Elon Musk
Yeah, I mean look, I'm under, I've been under constant attack. I mean it's not like I, you know, have a stone cold heart or something like that. You know, if you're under constant criticism attack, it's. And then that, that gets fed to you non stop, including through Twitter, that it's rough, you know. Now 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. So you know, so I think it is actually important to get negative feedback. 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. So somebody can, you know. So I get like a lot of negative feedback
BBC Interviewer
but I think it's actually
Elon Musk
good to get negative feedback. Right.
BBC Interviewer
When you talk about the emotional training, you've gone back to feedback. Is that the thing that been most difficult to take the sort of negative feedback?
Elon Musk
Yeah. I mean if the media is writing non stop stories about why you're a horrible person, I mean, you know, it's hurtful.
BBC Interviewer
Obviously I'm interested. I've written down a lot of these questions, 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 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 you seem to get your news still from the BBC. As you've already said, I literally follow
Elon Musk
the BBC on Twitter.
BBC Interviewer
So do you feel you have a kind of odd relationship with the media?
BBC Interviewer
go on, explain.
Elon Musk
No, it is somewhat of a love hate relationship, although, I mean, it might be tilted a bit more towards the ha. But, you know, it's, you know, I think this is sort of part and parcel of having a free media situation, which is that, you know, I do take heart in that the media is actually able to trash me on a regular basis in the United States, in the UK and whatnot. Whereas, you know, in a lot of other places, media cannot say mean things to powerful people. Okay. So I think it's better that we have a situation where the media can say mean things to powerful people.
BBC Interviewer
If we're talking about the media, let's talk about verification, labels, sales. You obviously 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 where few bucks a month. Yeah, can. Is that, can that be right? Is that what you envisaged when you bought Twitter?
Elon Musk
I must confess to some delight in removing the verified batch from the New York Times. That was great. Anyway, they're still alive and well, so they're doing fine.
BBC Interviewer
But on a serious note, it could flame disinformation again. If you have verified accounts that are from anyone who can pay money, they simply, they go up to potentially the top of feeds, they get more action on Twitter and traditional media that may not pay for verification doesn't. Do you see how that could potentially be a driver of misinformation?
Elon Musk
Well, I mean, I think the media is a driver of misinformation much more than the media would like to admit that they are.
BBC Interviewer
I mean, that's a different question.
Elon Musk
Yeah, but you are sort of saying like, who knows best, the average citizen or, you know, someone who is a journalist. And I think in a lot of cases it is the average citizen that knows more than the journalist. In fact, I mean, very often when I see an article about something that I know a lot about and I read the article and it's like they get a lot wrong. And, 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 hit the bull's eye. So then, like, generally this is what. How if you read an article about something you know about how much in that, how accurate is that article? Now imagine that that is how essentially all articles are. They're an approximation of what's going on, but not an exact situation. So if somebody is actually, let's say, in the fray or like an expert in the field and was actually there and then and writes about their experience of being actually there, I think that actually that, that that's in a lot of cases going to be better than a journalist because the journalist wasn't there.
BBC Interviewer
I think you said the legacy verified blue ticks are going to go next week. There have been a few deadlines on that.
BBC Interviewer
Yeah, I see the joke.
Elon Musk
That number will never leave me.
BBC Interviewer
Clearly it costs you a lot of money.
Elon Musk
Well, fortunately it didn't in the trial.
BBC Interviewer
Well, yeah, right. But as you say.
Elon Musk
Right. Yes. We're going to ask for a refund.
BBC Interviewer
Yeah. Okay.
Elon Musk
Yeah, good luck.
BBC Interviewer
Let's move on from that. But blue ticks, in theory, all legacy blue ticks gone next week. And this is. And at that point, you'll kind of work out whether this is going to sink or swim.
BBC Interviewer
What's your hunch? I mean, you've obviously.
Elon Musk
I think it's going to swim.
Elon Musk
Yeah, it'll swim just fine.
BBC Interviewer
Okay, what are you looking for in terms of. In terms of a revenue stream on that? What are your goals?
Elon Musk
Well, I don't know if it's like necessarily a giant revenue stream, you know, because even if you have sort of a million people that are subscribed for, let's say, $100 a year, ish, that's $100 million. And that's a fairly small revenue stream relative to advertising. But what we're really trying to do here with verification is to massively raise the cost of disinformation and bots in general. So my prediction is that any social media company that does not insist on paid verification will simply be overwhelmed by advanced AI bots. I mean, ChatGPT is essentially a zillion instances of ChatGPT.
BBC Interviewer
How do you really what you want on the platform? Do you want big news organizations being overwhelmed by bots?
Elon Musk
No, the point is you won't be if you pay.
BBC Interviewer
But a lot of organizations have already said they're not going to pay, like the New York Times.
Elon Musk
Well, then, you know, that's up to Them if they, you know, kind of make them pay, it's a small amount of money. So I don't know what their problem is. So. 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 should think, that it should be up to the people what they think. And even if an article is completely accurate and comprehensive and everything, if they're still in writing that article, the media is choosing the narrative. They're deciding what to write an article about. So I'm hopeful that this can be more a case of the public choosing the narrative as opposed to the media choosing the narrative. The media can choose at least a combination of the media and the public choosing the narrative and the public getting to weigh in on stories if they. If they think they should add something to it or we've got something wrong. And over time, I think if Twitter is the best source of truth, it will succeed. And if we are not the best source of truth, we will fail.
BBC Interviewer
Someone comes in and offers you $44 billion for Twitter right now, would you take it? Would you consider it?
BBC Interviewer
Why? Well, I take it back.
Elon Musk
It depends on who. I suppose if I was confident that they would pursue. That they would rigorously pursue the truth, then I guess I would be glad to hand it off to someone else. I don't care about the money, really, but I do want to have some source of truth that I can count on. And I hope that's our aspiration with Twitter, is to have a source of truth that you can count on. 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.
BBC Interviewer
Well, if you don't care about the money, you could just give it to someone that you think is a good person to run Twitter.
Elon Musk
Who do you think that might be?
BBC Interviewer
I'm not the boss of Twitter.
Elon Musk
No, but it is. Well, that's. You might still have an idea
BBC Interviewer
who could run Twitter.
BBC Interviewer
Honestly, I have no idea who could run Twitter.
Elon Musk
Yeah, it's a hard job.
BBC Interviewer
Okay, let's move on to. You said that you were going to stand down. I already am chief executive. Right. Okay.
Elon Musk
I can tell you I'm not the CEO of Twitter. My dog is the CEO of Twitter.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. Have you got any.
Elon Musk
He's a great dog. Other than the dog, very alert, and it's hard to get anything by Him.
BBC Interviewer
Okay, that's good to know. Other than the dog, have you got any successes?
Elon Musk
He's got a black turtle turtleneck. What more do you need?
BBC Interviewer
Okay. All right. We're going down that route. Steve Jobs or Elizabeth Holmes? Are you making reference to.
Elon Musk
I guess more Elizabeth Holmes.
BBC Interviewer
Okay, I've forgotten the question now it's
Elon Musk
got a husky voice or Mike. Problem solved.
BBC Interviewer
What are we talking about there? Yeah, who would you want? Have you got a successor in mind?
Elon Musk
I'm not yet. Hopefully at some point.
BBC Interviewer
Right. Because you did say you were going to stand out.
Elon Musk
I did stand down.
BBC Interviewer
Okay, let's move on from that then. All right. What about this office? I'm intrigued about this office. You said it was expensive.
Elon Musk
I don't really need CEO.
Elon Musk
Yeah. Why can't we be an anarcho syndicalist commune?
BBC Interviewer
I think Jack Dorsey kind of recommended doing this and kind of ignored it.
Elon Musk
Yeah, it was kind of that, actually,
BBC Interviewer
this office. Are you thinking about moving out of San Francisco?
Elon Musk
Not yet, No. I mean, this place is nice and I kind of like this office building, actually.
BBC Interviewer
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 will.
Elon Musk
I think we should do something about the crime.
Elon Musk
People are dying.
Elon Musk
We should take action.
BBC Interviewer
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, you've.
Elon Musk
We tried to turn into a homeless shelter. The bullying management owner rejected it.
BBC Interviewer
You tried?
Elon Musk
Yeah, they won't let us.
BBC Interviewer
Which bits have you tried to turn into a homeless shelter?
Elon Musk
We're only using one of the buildings and so the other building could be
BBC Interviewer
a homeless shelter and you've tried to.
Elon Musk
Yeah, we would like to do it right now.
BBC Interviewer
Really? Yes and no. They're being stopped. By who?
Elon Musk
By the building owner.
BBC Interviewer
They won't let you?
Elon Musk
No. In fact, they wouldn't even let us take the W off the sign.
BBC Interviewer
So how were you going to do that?
Elon Musk
Quite, quite. You know.
BBC Interviewer
What was your plan for the shelter?
Elon Musk
I don't know. We could just let people stay there. It's nice.
BBC Interviewer
Right. Okay. I didn't know that.
Elon Musk
They can bring their stuff, bring the tent, whatever.
BBC Interviewer
Right. And it's a roof over their head.
Elon Musk
Yeah. If the building owner lets us, we'll do it.
BBC Interviewer
Yeah. So if the building only lets you, you would happily do that?
BBC Interviewer
Okay. All right. There we go. 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 the last six months of your Twitter boss. Twitter owner.
Elon Musk
Well, shutting down one of our service centers was quite difficult because it turns out there were. I thought the service centers were redundant, but there 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. It was quite catastrophic. We lost a lot of functionality, which sort of really rushed to put it back.
BBC Interviewer
When was that?
Elon Musk
That was around late December, early January.
BBC Interviewer
So that was the biggest sort of, I'm worried, biggest crisis.
BBC Interviewer
And what about hard in terms of emotion? I mean. I mean, it's letting go. I mean, what were the current. The levels of stuff and what are they now?
Elon Musk
I think we're around 1500 people at this point. And there was, I think, 7800.
BBC Interviewer
What was that say?
Elon Musk
I think it was around just under 8,000, 8,000. 1500 right now.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. And has it been hard letting that many people go?
Elon Musk
Yeah. Not fun at all. It's painful,
BBC Interviewer
I mean, I guess. In what way do you. Do you feel like you need to speak to people when they.
BBC Interviewer
When they leave or.
Elon Musk
I mean, it's not physically possible to speak to that many people.
BBC Interviewer
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 it.
Elon Musk
It's one of the hardest things, certainly.
BBC Interviewer
Yeah. The Nancy Pelosi tweet. But there have been, as an example of a few. There have been others. Do you feel like you're an impulsive person?
Elon Musk
I mean, have I shot myself in the foot with tweets multiple times? Yes.
BBC Interviewer
Do you feel like I need bulletproof
Elon Musk
shoes at this point?
BBC Interviewer
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.
Elon Musk
I think I should not tweet after
BBC Interviewer
3:00am that's the rule.
Elon Musk
Yeah. Well, maybe two.
BBC Interviewer
That's the new rule.
Elon Musk
Yeah, something like that.
BBC Interviewer
Okay, so there's a blanket band.
Elon Musk
I shouldn't, I shouldn't, I shouldn't.
BBC Interviewer
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.
Elon Musk
Well, I think those are two good rules. Yeah. Don't tweet if you're wasted and. Or, you know, really upset about something. Yeah, probably. I mean, a good friend of mine actually had a good suggestion. It has helped, which is that if you're going to tweet something that maybe is controversial, save it as a draft and look at it the next day and see if you still want to tweet it. That has been a good rule of thumb.
Elon Musk
I've got a bunch of things in my draft folder that I'm glad I didn't send.
BBC Interviewer
I can't remember whether I've asked you this. This is my sort of wrapping up at this point, but. Yeah. Do you have any regrets?
Elon Musk
I mean, it was like Hindsight's 20 20, so a bunch of decisions that could have been made better for sure. But as I said, all's well, it ends well, and things are going pretty well. So in the grand scheme of things, I can't complain.
BBC Interviewer
Okay. I'm going to just check my list of things to make sure.
Elon Musk
I've actually maybe there's something that people on the. The Twitter one to say ask. You know, I could ask them.
BBC Interviewer
That's on you. That's on you.
Elon Musk
Wow, there's 680,000 people listening.
BBC Interviewer
There you go.
BBC Interviewer
That is a lot.
Elon Musk
Let's see. How do we see? Okay, let me see. I'll just look at my tweet and see what people are saying or what questions they have. Do you like the BBC? Do you like BBC?
BBC Interviewer
Okay, yeah, we're not going to interview.
Elon Musk
Do you like BBC?
BBC Interviewer
I know, I see what you're doing. I'm not going to respond to that. Okay, I think we can finish the interview there if you want to continue. Thank you very much.
Elon Musk
I really appreciate it. Surely you like BBC. Come on.
BBC Interviewer
I'm not engaging.
BBC Interviewer
Elon, it honestly has been a pleasure talking to you. It really has. And if you want to carry on answering questions on this, then go for it, but I'm not going to.
Elon Musk
Okay, well, I just want to see if there's, like, any good. There's a lot of comments here.
BBC Interviewer
I can imagine.
Elon Musk
There's so many. Anyway, so it's nice to be interviewed by the BBC. I have a lot of respect for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
BBC Interviewer
Did you say when the actual label is going to go public? Oh,
Elon Musk
do we still say state media or whatever? Oh, it says government funded media currently as opposed to publicly funded media. I guess probably we can make that change. Tomorrow if you'd like to. It's up to you.
BBC Interviewer
It's up to you. We'll expect that tomorrow.
Elon Musk
I mean, do you have any requests on a personal level or you can speak on a personal level?
BBC Interviewer
No, I don't.
BBC Interviewer
I think we've established that. What questions are people asking you? Go on.
Elon Musk
I mean it's like a lot of comments. I was literally reading on looking at replies to the fact that the space is.
BBC Interviewer
Are there any good questions that I've missed out in the last six months? I'm sure there are many.
Elon Musk
I mean people generally seem to like this interview. As far as I can tell, very few negative comments, generally positive.
BBC Interviewer
That's probably bad for me.
Elon Musk
I'm scrolling as fast as I can to sort of see. I guess there's some complaints about Twitter spaces needing some improvement. Let's fix Twitter spaces is one of the comments. People like the fact that. And my dog Loki is the CEO and I'm really just scrolling as fast as I can here.
BBC Interviewer
I guess my reflection on this,
Elon Musk
I'd just like to say I like BBC. I do find it funny, I think,
BBC Interviewer
I mean, honestly listening to the interview, the answer about misinformation and saying, oh, we don't police misinformation in the same way, but we do try and get bots. Because we try and take down bots, we'll be effective at bots. There's actually less misinformation on the platform.
Elon Musk
No, I think that's a big factor
BBC Interviewer
because I'll ask you one more question on that because that is quite a lot of people I think will be listening to this. Really. You're arguing you can police content moderation far less and end up with less misinformation.
Elon Musk
First of all, we do have people working on contract moderation. It's not like we don't.
BBC Interviewer
I've spoken to lots of people who've been fired. So lots of people have been let go. I mean gone from 8,000 to 15.
Elon Musk
The censorship bureau was let go. I don't think the sort of putting a thumb on the political scales on the far left has been let go because that's not right. That's not what you want for a public, public square. You know, you got to have equal treatment for people from across the political spectrum. So you know, some of them are going to be upset about that. But like I said, my experience is that there's less misinformation these days, not more. And that the community notes feature is extremely powerful for addressing so called misinformation.
BBC Interviewer
I mean, you've been. You've had community notes placed on your own tweets. Yes. One of them involving an alleged diamond mine.
BBC Interviewer
A mine that.
Elon Musk
What diamond mine?
BBC Interviewer
A mine that your father part owned.
Elon Musk
Yeah. My father never owned a diamond. You think you have an emerald? Emerald mine.
BBC Interviewer
Emerald mine, yeah.
Elon Musk
I'd like to see a picture of this alleged emerald mine.
BBC Interviewer
Because you've been. You've been community noted on that. Did you know that?
Elon Musk
No. But he never owned an emerald mine. This is total bullshit.
BBC Interviewer
Not even a 50% stake? No, because in community. No, but first of all, okay, do you think emerald.
Elon Musk
Do you think something like an emerald mine would have, like, you know, some sort of property register? There'd be like a picture of it. It's not like you can say, oh, that's my mine. You know, these things are hotly debated. If you've got something valuable, you. You have to have some property record, like a house, 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.
BBC Interviewer
So that's. It's a really good example then, because there is a community note on that tweet that says, you said this thing on the X date, 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.
Elon Musk
The community note may be referring to a thing where I went on a trip with my father to Zambia, but I never saw any mine or anything. So there's no mine.
BBC Interviewer
I'm not. Right. But at this point, I'm just saying the community notes that it is. So you're saying it's this great panacea, but yeah, it's literally on your own tweet. The community notes, according to. You're wrong.
Elon Musk
If they're referencing an article, then the article may not be wrong, but they're still representing. Anyway, Community Notes is not going to be perfect, but it's the batting average of Community Notes I found to be extremely high. Right.
BBC Interviewer
So the community notes plus getting rid of millions and millions of bots every day, I guess that's what we're talking about. That's what you think is tackling misinformation over content moderation. Because I think that's the bit that a lot of people will go, really?
Elon Musk
Really? Yes, really. Look, the acid test is people use the system and find it to be a good source of truth or they don't and no system is going to be perfect in its pursuit of the truth But I think, I think we can be the best the least inaccurate that's our goal the least inaccurate
Elon Musk
think we might be there already if we're not there we'll be there soon.
BBC Interviewer
Do you have I've spoken to people who think this do you have a kind of message for people who think that Twitter has been ruined?
Elon Musk
Well we have all time high usage so I don't think it has been
BBC Interviewer
Some people think it has been I'll
Elon Musk
tell you that 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 okay
BBC Interviewer
I'm not going to ask you whether you think it's been ruined because obviously
Elon Musk
no I think it's great that's way better better by a lot that. Sa. It's.