When Elon Musk spoke to Twitter employees for the first time in an all-hands Q&A meetingThe Tesla and SpaceX CEO provided some more details about his plans for the social platform.
When Musk first announced his bid buy Twitter for $44 billionhe proposed the idea of ”authenticate all humans” on Twitter. Like we know wellone of his biggest grievances with the platform is its bots and fake accounts.
Today, Musk elaborated on what this plan might entail and clarified that he doesn’t think human authentication is a requirement for using Twitter. He added that anonymity can be helpful for people to freely express their political views, which is a priority for him.
Based on BloombergMusk has proposed an idea that users could pay to be authenticated as humans through a tool like the Twitter subscription product Blue, and those users’ tweets could then be ranked on the others.
As for content moderation, Musk remains true to his previous claims that people can say “pretty one-sided things” as long as the claims are legitimate.
Musk often calls himself a “liberalist” (although soon approved Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to the president, who supported and signed legislation restricting discussions about race and LGBTQ issues in state public schools).
But Twitter’s existing platform guidelines are not as strict. In addition to banning illegal actions, the platform also bans hateful conduct (attacking or threatening people based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, etc.), a description of graphic violence and encourage suicide or self harm.
On the business front, Musk said he wants Twitter to pass one billion users. According to last quarter’s report, Twitter has 229 million monetized daily active users.
User growth will directly support Musk’s other ideas for Twitter – he wants the company to generate more money through ads, in-app payments and more creator features . Although Twitter has launched a number of products for creators such as super followings, ticketing space and tipping, creators do not rely on Twitter for income, on the contrary, run an account. Successful YouTube accounts can be a viable career.
Musk said he wants Twitter to be more like China’s WeChat, noting that its users “basically live on” the app, as it combines social media, messaging, calling, games and pay into an app. He also commended TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, for keeping users entertained.
It’s still not clear how, when or if this agreement may endas Musk requested More information from Twitter about how many accounts are actually not real people. At the same time, the stock market took a hit, sending Twitter and Tesla shares lower, which put Musk in a bind as Twitter expected him to honor his $44 billion offer.
Still, Musk claims to love Twitter and is at least committed enough to answer employee questions.
“Some people use their hair to express themselves. I use Twitter,” he speak.
