(Photo: OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP)
Billionaire Elon Musk describes his ownership of Twitter as “pretty painful”, “a roller coaster ride” and “no party”. He also admits that he will sell this social media platform without hesitation, should the right buyer raise his hand.
In a candid interview with BBC, about six months after he bought Twitter for $44 billion, Musk said that the past few months had been extremely stressful. He does feel that he “did the right thing” when he bought the social media platform in October last year.
Musk says Twitter at that stage had “only four months to survive” financially.
Now “things are going pretty well” and “the website is working”, he says.
There are indeed evenings that he spends the night on a couch in a library on the seventh floor of Twitter’s head office in San Francisco, Musk admits.
In the candid interview, Musk also addresses those frequent controversial tweets of his.
“Have I shot myself in the foot several times with tweets? Yes,” the billionaire admits. “I think I shouldn’t tweet after 3am.”
Regarding Twitter’s finances, Musk says that the platform is now finally playing almost even after most of its advertisers initially withdrew from Twitter and then returned.
He also admits that cutting Twitter’s workforce from just under 8,000 to around 1,500 wasn’t easy. He also did not fire all the employees personally. “It is not possible to talk face to face with so many people.”
On the issue of the verified blue ticks on the platform, Musk says these ticks will be removed from Twitter accounts by the end of next week.
Musk has an estimated personal fortune of nearly $190 billion, making him the world’s second-richest person, according to the Forbes billionaires list.
Look here after BBC’s meeting with Musk.
Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 11, 2023
Watch Elon Musk’s last minute interview with the BBC https://t.co/HkyBOQ0FGe
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 12, 2023
