San Francisco — Elon Musk has publicly dumped Twitter in the trash for weeks, despite buying the company for a $ 44 billion deal. On Thursday, he finally acted like an owner.
In the morning, during a one-hour question-and-answer session with about 8,000 Twitter employees, Mr. Musk spoke with them for the first time since he agreed to acquire a social media company in April. The wealthiest man in the world talked about his plans. For service. In his exaggerated and sometimes rambling speeches, he touched on topics such as growth, potential layoffs, anonymity, Chinese apps, the existence of alien lifeforms, and even the cosmic nature of Twitter.
“I hope Twitter contributes to a better, lasting civilization that better understands the essence of reality,” Musk said at a meeting heard by the New York Times, live streamed to Twitter employees. I did.
The 50-year-old added that he hopes the service will help humanity “to better understand the nature of the universe as long as it can be understood.”
A meeting that Mr. Musk attended from his cell phone in a place that looked like a hotel room suggested that he was supposed to close the blockbuster acquisition. His intention was when electric car maker Tesla and Billionaire, who runs the rocket company SpaceX, repeatedly asked about Twitter’s fake account with the obvious excuse that they could close or renegotiate the deal. It was suspicious.
Since April, the famous benevolent Musk has tweeted that the purchase is “pending” and accused Twitter of “aggressively resisting and obstructing” his rights. At another point, he was criticizing some of the company’s executives. He made his inflammatory comments when the world market plunged and Tesla’s stock, his main source of wealth, plunged.
Disgust from Mr. Musk, who is paying $ 54.20 per share to buy Twitter, has made investors, company employees, and others speculate about what he will do. Twitter stock is currently trading for about $ 37. Still, the company claims that the deal is going well and is sharing information with Mr. Musk, who is supposed to pay a $ 1 billion split fee if Mr. Musk leaves.
Mr. Musk hadn’t talked directly about whether to sign a contract with Twitter on Thursday, but he revealed to employees that he had great ambitions.
In a conversation moderated by Twitter chief marketing officer Leslie Berland, Musk said he wanted to expand the service to more than a billion users worldwide. That’s almost four times the current number of users. He added that he is practical at Tesla and expects it to be on Twitter.
Some warned that even with such performance, Mr. Musk might change his mind about closing Twitter deals.
“I think he’s working on two tracks,” said Ann Lipton, Professor of Corporate Governance at Tulane Law School. “Maybe he wants to lower the price or cancel his deal. If the deal closes, he wants an additional investor.”
She added: “Talking publicly with Twitter employees and trying to mitigate concerns may reassure potential investors, but I know if it’s his Plan B or his Plan A. not.”
Twitter declined to comment on the meeting, and Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk was planning to talk to a Twitter employee a few weeks ago, but the session didn’t take place. Over the past week, the San Francisco-based company began collecting employee questions from employees on its in-house Slack messaging system. The meeting, scheduled to start at 9am San Francisco time, started a few minutes late, and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal thanked Mr. Musk.
Then Mr. Musk began answering questions, including about remote work. This month he sent notes to Tesla and SpaceX workers, stating that they expect them to be in the office 40 hours a week. Twitter employees have worked primarily remotely in the coronavirus pandemic.
Musk told Twitter employees that software development is open to remote work, given that it’s different from what appears every day to build a car. However, he said a significant lack of office participation could contribute to the decline in “Esprit de Corp” and that people are more willing to enter the office in the future. I was hoping for.
Mr. Musk avoided answering directly on Twitter if he had a layoff, but his answer was a bit ominous.
“Currently, costs outweigh revenue,” he said. “It’s not a great situation.”
At another point, he jumped into a debate about whether extraterrestrial life was possible, but it was unclear where he netted out. He also enthusiastically raised the Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok, given that WeChat is so integrated into the daily lives of Chinese people that TikTok is “not boring”.
One of the improvements Musk wanted to make was to add payment technology to Twitter. Ideally, users will be able to send money through the service, similar to the behavior of products such as Venmo and Square Cash.
How Elon Musk’s Twitter transaction unfolded
A blockbuster contract. Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, has restricted what the famous benevolent billionaire seemed like an unlikely attempt to buy Twitter for about $ 44 billion. Here’s how the transaction was developed:
Musk, a longtime power user of Twitter with more than 98 million followers, has long believed that the company’s potential isn’t fully exploited. He added that he wants to keep the company private and revitalize services that are out of the public market by making significant changes to how Twitter operates.
On Twitter, some employees had mixed feelings about Mr. Musk. Some say they are concerned about his Twitter habits and vague politics.
On Thursday, SpaceX employees were also concerned about the public behavior of their CEO, especially how he behaved on Twitter, noting that it wasn’t reflected much to the employees. Was circulated.
“Eron’s actions in the public sphere are often distracting and embarrassing to us,” the Times said. Previously reported The Verge. “As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is considered the face of SpaceX. Every tweet sent by Elon is a de facto official statement by the company.”
Others on Twitter say Musk is worried about how he wants to take a laissez-faire approach to cracking down on the platform.
On Thursday, he emphasized that he wanted Twitter to be as comprehensive as possible, primarily by increasing users, and added that he would not allow criminal activity on the network. He also said he didn’t want people to use his real name on Twitter, and that it was useful to use pseudonyms to express his political views on the service.
Some Twitter employees who pointed out Musk’s reputation as an innovator said he was well after Thursday’s meeting. They said he seemed to have a vision for the product, even though Mr. Musk wasn’t hostile and sometimes couldn’t make a clear announcement. Others said he didn’t answer the question and wrote in an internal Slack message that the Times saw: “If you drink every time he answers the question, you’ll be painfully calm at the end.” rice field. this. “
Mr. Musk was uncommitted when asked if he would take on the role of CEO on Twitter when he took over the company. He said he wasn’t a traditional CEO and pointed out his title at techno king Tesla. However, he also said he has many ideas for product updates and service evolution and will inform others in the company.
“I expect them to listen to me in this regard,” Musk said.
Ryan Mac When Lauren Hirsch Report that contributed.
