Billionaire Elon Musk had his inaugural meeting with the popular platform Twitter’s workers through a livestream chat on Thursday, where he explained his future plans for the social media giant.
Among the things that Musk highlighted during his speech was that he aims to make Twitter more subscription-based, saying things like users should “pay to get verified” or that they “need to be forced to pay to have an army of bots” on the platform.
He also maintained his stance on user freedom, pointing out that people should be allowed to say whatever they want on Twitter provided they’re not breaking any laws. Musk has openly criticised Twitter’s stance on its moderation policies and has stated in the past that he would be willing to remove the ban on the account on former US President Donald Trump. However, the Tesla owner added that, while people should be given free reins to say whatever they want, their voices shouldn’t be seen by many other users.
Musk also added that Twitter needs to alter its trajectory in order to gain more followers. He pointed towards popular Chinese platform WeChat as a prime example of what they should be doing. He stated that people in China mainly rely on WeChat for all their information and entertainment purposes while also complimenting TikTok for its algorithm.
In regards to the future of the employees themselves and the working environment at the company, Musk was a little vague, yet from what can be surmised from his statements during the Q&A session, people at the company who produce “excellent results” will still be allowed to continue working from home. He did stress that he would prefer if people came into the office (which as the people at Tesla recently found out, is the way he wants his companies to operate) however he claimed that if someone who can only work from home and they’re “exceptional”, then it wouldn’t really make sense to give them the sack.
While the Tesla owner didn’t specifically mention anything regarding layoffs, he did say that the company “needs to get (financially) healthy”, which implies that there may be some staff cutbacks in the near future.
Meanwhile, as Musk had his first meeting at Twitter, the environment at one of his other companies, SpaceX, is becoming increasingly difficult to control. Many workers at the company have expressed their criticism towards their boss in an open letter which was seen by The Verge, pointing out that he’s becoming “a source of embarrassment” for them. The letter goes on to add that the company’s owner was living up to the rules he himself set out for zero tolerance towards sexual harassment, quoting the incident between Musk and a SpaceX flight attendant, with the two coming to a settlement for over $350,000.
