Elon Musk ‘not aware’ about Twitter taking down content on BBC documentary
Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday said that some rules related to social media are ‘quite strict’ in India while adding that he is not aware about ‘what exactly happened’ when Twitter took down content related to a documentary critical to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I am not aware of this particular situation… don’t know what exactly happened with some content situation in India,” Musk told UK-based British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in a live interview on Twitter Spaces. He added that rules against social media content are ‘quite strict and we can’t go beyond the laws of the country’.
Talking on the acquisition of the microblogging site, he said the company is ‘roughly breaking even’ and attributed its decline in revenue to the cyclical nature of ad spending. In what is believed to be an unexpected interview, Musk said buying Twitter ‘hasn’t been some kind of party’ and added that the ‘pain level has been extremely high’.
The billionaire further agreed that there were mistakes made along the way after the acquisition, however, he feels like the company is now headed to a ‘good place’. He also added that the platform now has about 1,500 employees, a sharp contrast from over 7,000 workers before he took over. Justifying the mass lay off move, Musk said ‘a $3 billion negative cash flow situation’ due to which Twitter had only ‘four months to live’.
“What would you do? If you’ve four months to live, a 120 days, in a hundred and 20 days you’re dead, so what do you want to do?” he said during the interview.
His interview came after BBC objected to being labelled as ‘government funded media’ on one of its Twitter accounts. The broadcast company reached out to the social media company to resolve the issue. Responding to question on the ongoing row, Musk confirmed that Twitter will change tag to ‘publicly-funded’.
“I think we’re adjusting the label to be publicly-funded, which I think is not too objectionable. We’re trying to be accurate,” he told BBC, adding that he has the ‘utmost respect’ for the broadcasting company.