Elon Musk said Tuesday that Twitter’s new chief executive will let him devote more time to Tesla, but he will continue to tweet his unfiltered thoughts even if it hurts his business.
“I don’t care,” the billionaire said in an interview with CNBC when asked about his opinion that his controversial tweets could hurt Tesla’s stock price or make it more difficult to sell ads on Twitter.
“I’m going to say what I want to say, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it.”
Linda Yaccarino, a respected media and advertising executive considered by some to be a visionary, was named as Musk’s successor as Twitter CEO.
“Twitter is very much an advertising business; Linda is obviously incredible at that and overall a great executive,” Musk said.
“Linda will run a company and I will make the products.”
Since taking over Twitter in late October, Musk has repeatedly stoked controversy, firing most of his staff, re-enabling banned accounts from the platform, suspending journalists and charging for previously free services.
The moves spooked advertisers, many of whom left the platform over concerns their products were associated with disturbing content.
Musk also cleared the way for Donald Trump to return to Twitter, but the former US president has yet to return to the platform, choosing instead to post on his own social media site.
Musk told CNBC that if Trump returns and posts baseless claims about the 2020 election, the “Community Notes” feature will allow Twitter users to point out misinformation, adding that he personally does not believe the election was “stolen” as Trump claimed.
While Musk has made his stance on free speech clear and has been harshly critical of content moderation before and after the 2020 election, Twitter recently admitted that it bowed to pressure from the Turkish government and removed content ahead of last weekend’s election.
“Following multiple such warnings, we received what we believe to be a final threat to restrict service,” the company said on Monday, prompting an outcry over apparent hypocrisy.
“So, in an effort to keep Twitter available over election weekend, we took action against four accounts and 409 tweets identified by the court order.”
Musk told CNBC that he will be paying special attention to artificial intelligence at Tesla, and the company is already using such technology for self-driving features.
“I think Tesla is going to have a ChatGPT moment; I would say next year at the latest,” Musk said of Tesla’s artificial intelligence for self-driving.
The ChatGPT bot from OpenAI, a startup Musk helped found, captured imaginations and stoked fears about powerful artificial intelligence.
“I am the reason OpenAI exists,” Musk claimed, noting that he invested around $50 million (roughly Rs. 400 crore) in the startup initially.
“I came up with the name.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)