Musk dodges questions, fires salvos in two-hour Twitter ramble

Elon Musk declared that most of the advertisers who abandoned Twitter after his $US44 billion ($66 billion) acquisition have returned, suggesting the struggling platform is regaining its footing during a rambling interview played out before millions of listeners.

Musk, speaking in a rare Twitter Spaces interview with the BBC, reaffirmed Twitter was operating at about breakeven and could become profitable as soon as this quarter. More than 3 million concurrent users tuned in to the almost two-hour-long conversation, which at times became combative as the billionaire turned the tables on his interviewer and questioned the BBC’s track record on everything from COVID misinformation to hate speech.

Musk acquired Twitter last year after a tumultuous battle with the company’s management and board, who at one point sued the entrepreneur to get him to close the deal. Musk said he eventually went through with it because he was legally obliged to, but later said he probably wouldn’t sell Twitter even if offered the same price.

Most advertisers are now back on Twitter, Musk said, following an exodus triggered by mass firings and technical glitches that prompted concerns about the potential proliferation of hate speech, fake news and other objectionable content.

“Almost all of them have either come back or said they’re coming back,” Musk said.

Much of Tuesday’s session, which Musk said was hastily thrown together after a BBC reporter sent him an inquiry, touched on familiar ground. Topics included Musk’s thoughts about firing thousands (it had to be done), his greatest challenges in the past six months (shutting one of three data centres, which triggered outages) and constantly shooting himself in the foot with impulsive tweets (“I need bulletproof shoes”).

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The executive, whose other day jobs include running Tesla and SpaceX or Space Exploration Technologies Corp, was evasive at times and brutally direct at others. Most of the questions centred on his thinking since launching a bid for the social media platform last year.

Regarding Twitter’s future, Musk said he did not see any social network without paid-verification surviving. He was addressing criticism about Twitter charging $US8 for the blue checkmarks that once conferred legitimacy on everything from media organisations to public figures. He reiterated his position that the payment barrier was the only workable way to avert misinformation bots swamping an online platform.