Elon Musk reveals why he bought Twitter. He claims his plan was not to increase his wealth.
However, Musk says buying Twitter is a way of ensuring the company remains a trusted platform in a democracy. “This is not a way to make money,” said Elon Musk, Monday (4/18/2022).
“My strong intuitive feeling is that having a public platform that is maximally trustworthy and broadly inclusive is critical to the future of civilization.”
Elon Musk says Twitter should open up its algorithms. The goal is to increase transparency in the company's content moderation decisions and be a major change in the way it operates.
“The code has to be on Github so people can look at it and say ‘I see a problem here', ‘I don't agree with this', they can highlight the problem, suggest changes,” said Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
When asked about how he changed the moderation of Twitter content, Elon Musk explained that testing a platform to see if it adheres to free speech principles is very simple. The principle is: “Is someone you don't like allowed to say something you don't like? If that's the case, we have free speech.”
He also touched on the controversial tweet. If that happens, the company may not promote it.
However, he did not recommend sanctions for a permanent Twitter account ban. “I think we want to be very reluctant to remove things and be very careful with permanent bans, time limits are better,” Musk said.
However, Elon Musk did not fully defend the plan. The 50-year-old said that after the purchase of Twitter, there were still errors that occurred.
If something went wrong with Twitter, Elon Musk has openly said a lot of people would blame him and it was his fault.
“I think everyone is still going to blame me for everything,” he said. “If I acquire Twitter and something goes wrong, it's my fault, 100%. I think there will be mistakes”.
In addition, he was also asked his plan if the offer to buy Twitter worth US $ 43 billion was rejected. Elon Musk confirmed he had a number of back-up ideas, but did not elaborate on them.
Elon Musk made the offer Thursday (4/14/2022) to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor. He has also appointed a financial advisor.
In his offer letter, he stated that the reason for investing in Twitter was because he believed in the potential of being a platform with freedom of expression. He also added that freedom of expression must be exercised for democracy to function.
