SAN FRANCISCO – For weeks, Elon Musk has been destroying Twitter in public. On Thursday, he acted as if he would finally own the company.
In a one-hour Q&A session with about 8,000 Twitter employees this morning – the first time Mr. Musk has spoken to them since making a $ 44 billion deal to buy social media company in April – the world’s richest man open up your plans for the service. In a delightful and at times scattered address, he touched on growth, potential layoffs, issues such as anonymity, Chinese applications and even the cosmic nature of Twitter.
“I want Twitter to contribute to a better, long-lasting civilization in which we have a better understanding of the nature of reality,” Mr Musk said during a virtual meeting that was broadcast live to Twitter staff and hosted by The New York. The Times was listening. He added that he hoped the service would help humanity “better understand the nature of the universe as much as possible.”
The meeting, in which Mr. Musk participated from his mobile phone in what looked like a hotel room, suggests that he is set to close the blockbuster deal. In recent weeks, his intentions for Twitter have been called into question. The billionaire, who also runs electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, has repeatedly raised questions about fake Twitter accounts. This month, his lawyers told him that the company refused to give him information, an obvious pretext for a potential attempt to terminate or renegotiate the acquisition.
Mr Musk, who offered $ 54.20 a share to buy Twitter, may have changed his mind after falling global markets. Shares of Twitter are now trading at around $ 38. And shares of Tesla, Mr Musk’s main source of wealth, have also fallen.
In April, Mr Musk agreed to buy Twitter without proper scrutiny. He is on the hook for a $ 1 billion separation fee if he leaves. Under the terms of the deal, Twitter also has the right to sue him to force the completion of the acquisition if his debt financing for the purchase remains intact.
Twitter has insisted that the deal remains ongoing and that it is sharing information with Mr Musk.
Speaking on Thursday, Mr Musk did not say directly whether he would close the deal with Twitter. But he said he has big plans for the service.
In a conversation moderated by Twitter’s chief marketing officer, Leslie Berland, Mr Musk said he hoped to expand the service to more than a billion people worldwide. That would be almost four times more than the people who use Twitter right now. He added that he was practically at Tesla and expects to be one at Twitter and will be particularly involved in the functions of the social media service.
“I expect to be heard in this regard,” Mr Musk said.
Mr Musk answered questions gathered by Twitter staff at Slack’s internal messaging system over the past week.
Some of the questions were about workplace culture, including telecommuting. This month, Mr Musk sent notes to Tesla and SpaceX workers, saying he expected them to be in the office 40 hours a week. Twitter employees largely worked remotely during the coronavirus pandemic.
During the meeting, Mr Musk said he was open to Twitter employees working remotely, given that software development is different from the daily show of building cars. But he noted that the widespread lack of participation in the office could contribute to the declining esprit de corps, and said he hoped people would be more willing to come to the office in the future.
Mr Musk fled directly, answering whether there would be redundancies on Twitter under his control, although his response was ominous.
“Currently, costs exceed revenues,” he said. “It’s not a great situation.”
Mr Musk, a longtime experienced Twitter user with more than 98 million followers, has long said he believes the company’s potential has been underused. He added that he hopes to rejuvenate the service out of sight in public markets by making the company private and making significant changes to the way Twitter works.
On Twitter, some employees had mixed feelings about Mr. Musk. Some said they were concerned about his Twitter habits and murky policies and worried about how he said he would prefer to take a laissez-faire approach to the platform’s police management. This has raised questions, given the years Twitter has spent building its political department.
Others point to Mr Musk’s reputation as an innovator. After previous Twitter executives set but failed to achieve high financial and consumer goals, some officials said Mr Musk could revive the company.
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