Elon Musk plans for Twitter

On Thursday, Elon Musk addressed Twitter employees for the first time. Musk announced his intention to buy Twitter for $44 billion nearly two months ago. The meeting comes amid questions about whether Musk will complete his acquisition of the social network. Musk answered a series of questions posed by the staff on a range of topics.

Musk’s goal is to reach 1 billion daily active users - an ambitious goal, as 229 million people use Twitter daily right now. He deflected a question about whether he plans on becoming the CEO, and said he doesn’t care about titles, but he cares about driving the direction of the platform.

His interest in Twitter was prompted by protecting free speech. Previously, Musk has criticised the company on their rules on misinformation and other legal but harmful content. He says that people should be allowed to say what they want to say. He also said that he would reinstate former President Donald Trump, who was banned from Twitter following the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Earlier this month, he told employees they will either have to come into the office again full time or be let go. While he did not give details on Thursday about what his policy on remote work will look like, he said that he is open to letting “exceptional” employees work remotely.

The meeting also has employees worried about potential layoffs. “It depends. The company does need to get healthy,” Musk told employees, according to a person that listened to the meeting.

Image from BBC