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Elon Musk spoke to staffers at Silicon Valley tech giant Twitter for the first time Thursday, in a virtual meeting that saw the outspoken exec set plans for the company ahead of his $44 billion takeover.
The all-hands meeting, held just after 9 am PT, saw Musk speak to 7,500 employees from a shakily held smartphone, which he looked to be holding in his hand.
Arriving ten minutes late, Musk, 51, utilized a freewheeling Q&A format for the conference, where he addressed topics ranging from free speech, layoffs, and his preference for in-person work.
Musk also mused about the existence of aliens and other space civilizations during the hour-long talk, and affirmed his stance that the social media company should strive to help ‘civilization and consciousness.’
Musk also addressed plans to take the position of CEO of the company ahead of the planned takeover, as well as his own political stance.
It was the billionaire’s first interaction with the company’s thousands of rank-in-file workers, whom he will likely soon take charge of if his buyout proves successful.
Elon Musk spoke to staffers at Silicon Valley tech giant Twitter for the first time Thursday, in a meeting that saw the exec set plans for the company ahead of his $44 billion takeover
It was the billionaire’s first interaction with the company’s thousands of rank-in-file workers, whom he will likely soon take charge of if his buyout proves successful
The Musk-led meeting, much like the man himself, served as an amalgam of both humor and substance.
In it, the South African mogul set the lofty goal of growing the site’s userbase to 1 billion monthly/daily active users – more than four times its current number of users.
The company said in its Q1 2022 earnings that it had 229 million users as of March.
While outlining a plan to achieve that number, Musk declared that the social media would only be truly successful if it can somehow further civilization and collective consciousness, he said.
Reporters said Musk addressed topics ranging from free speech, layoffs, and his preference for in-person work during the hourlong call, held Thursday morning
He further told staff that he felt advertising should remain important for the company – contradicting previous assertions that the site should not run ads, Reuters reported.
‘I think advertising is very important for Twitter,’ Musk said. ‘I’m not against advertising. I would probably talk to the advertisers and say, like, “hey, let’s just make sure the ads are as entertaining as possible.”‘
While he said he wants ads to be entertaining, Musk proclaimed that he would not allow people to advertise ‘bad products’ that do not deliver on makers’ promises.
Musk, who has described himself as a moderate in recent years but has showed increasingly right-wing views in recent months, was then asked by staffers at the notoriously progressive company about his political views, which have seemed to shift as of late
Musk responded by reiterating that he supports ‘moderate politics’ and that he’s ‘pretty close to center.’
He added that he wants to maintain users’ free speech on the platform, by allowing extreme or ‘outrageous’ views on their social media – as long as they are within the bounds of the law.
Musk went on to say that he has voted Democratic at every election until this week, when he cast a ballot for Republican Texas Rep. Maya Flores – an assertion he had already made on the platform Wednesday.
Meanwhile, world’s richest man Musk is currently embroiled in a months-long deal to but Silicon Valley social media giant Twitter for roughly $44 billion – and his stark anti-remote sentiments would likely fly in the face of the company’s more relaxed work from home rules
Just hours before, Musk announced on the platform that he was leaning toward Conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a potential next president, and predicted a ‘red wave’ would hit the country come November for midterm elections.
Musk, a staunch libertarian, went on to posit that making Twitter a paid service may prove beneficial to the company.
He said that one of his goals was to make the platform too expensive for foreign entities to feasibly deploy armies of bots – such as those used by Russian agents on the platform to influence the 2016 presidential election – to influence public opinion.
The conversation then turned to Musk’s view on remote working – a subject that seemed to be on the top of the minds of staffers at the meeting, which was moderated by a Twitter executive.
Musk has previously said he would fire Tesla employees if they did not work at least 40 hours a week in their respective offices.
Musk has also hit out against remote working policies in recent months, blasting Americans for ‘trying to avoid going to work at all’ – in contrast to workers in China who stay at the factory ‘burning the 3am oil’.
In a surprising exception, Musk said that only “excellent contributors” should be permitted to work from home and that too many people were dwelling on the idea of remote work.
Meanwhile, as a private company, Musk said that Twitter would have a similar compensation structure to that of SpaceX, offering stock and options awards and liquidity windows every six months.
An employee then asked if the businessman desired to take the position of CEO if the deal – which has been approved but put on pause over Musk’s concerns of the number of fake or spam accounts on the service – does go through.
Musk, however, seemed to brush away the question with a non-answer, saying that he’s not that hung up on titles but does want to ‘drive the product in a particular direction.’
He went on to cite the level of responsibility the role demands, and the ‘chores’ CEOs typically have to deal with.
And while he said that he doesn’t really care what the title is, the mogul went on to assert that people do need to listen to him if the deal goes through.
Then, in a bizarre turn, the conversation turned to extraterrestrials, sources who attended the meeting said.
According to insiders, Musk – going on a tangent – said conceded he hasn’t seen actual evidence of aliens, but added that does not mean they do not exist.
‘I have seen no actual evidence for aliens,’ the Tesla and SpaceX CEO reportedly said.
On the more serious topic of layoffs, Musk said that any nixings would be considered on a performance basis.
In response, employees reportedly wrote in a Slack chatroom meant to send in prospective questions to be approved by the presiding moderator, CMO Leslie Berland, that many of their worries about layoffs, remote work, and diversity measures were confirmed during Musk’s spiel.
Employees reportedly flooded the chatroom with memes where they jokingly branded themselves ‘exceptional’ to fit in with Musk’s proposed remote policy, and complained that Musk was not providing any useful answers on his vision for the company.
According to a source who spoke to CNBC, the majority of the reactions on the Slack messaging board were negative in nature.
The meeting did not see Musk address his commitment to the Twitter deal, which has yet to be finalized.
Sources reportedly said he was not asked the question.
The Tesla Boss has been complaining about fake accounts or bots on the Twitter platform and said that this has complicated his bid to purchase the company for $44billion.
Musk claimed he wanted to pause the deal to verify that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 percent of the company’s 229 million users during the first quarter.
‘My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate. Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does,’ he said.
Musk has speculated that bots could make up at least half of Twitter’s users, more than 10 times the company’s official estimate.
The tweet caused Twitter’s stocks to nosedive since his deal was announced, as analysts speculated that Musk is trying to negotiate a lower purchase price or pull out of the agreement entirely.
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