Sources: Elon Musk addressed Twitter employees for the first time since agreeing to buy the company in April, discussing potential layoffs, moderation, and more
here's why. Shalini Nagarajan / Blockworks : Elon Musk Teases Crypto Integration At His First Twitter All-Hands Abhishek Mishra / Fossbytes : Elon Musk's First Meeting With Twitter Employees Transcript Leaked Stephen Graves / Decrypt : Elon Musk Reveals Crypto Twitter Plans in Leaked Transcript La Wikly de Emilio Doménech : 🚛 Una furgoneta llena de supremacistas Shannon Bond / NPR : Elon Musk addresses Twitter staff about free speech, remote work, layoffs and aliens Transistori : Elon Musk osallistui Twitterin henkilöstöpalaveriin Shivdeep Dhaliwal / Benzinga : Elon Musk Mulls SpaceX-Like Pay Structure For Twitter Staff Wall Street Journal : Elon Musk Talks Staffing, Free Speech, Remote Work in Twitter Employee Meeting Kristijan Lucic / Android Headlines : Elon Musk Met With Twitter Staff, And Hinted At Layoffs Mike Dalton / Crypto Briefing : Elon Musk Hints at Crypto Plans in First Twitter Meeting Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg : Musk Pledges No Changes at Twitter — for ‘Exceptional’ Workers Kari Paul / The Guardian : In rare move, Elon Musk meets Twitter employees to give ‘freedom of speech’ address Bloomberg : Elon Musk Addresses Twitter Staff Meeting Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today : Musk's Twitter Plans Remain Vague After First Q and A with Company Staff Riley Gutiérrez McDermid / TheStreet : Real or Not, Elon Musk Wants Lots More Twitter Users Jill Goldsmith / Deadline : Elon Musk In Twitter Town Hall Says He Wants At Least A Billion Users, Hints At Layoffs Barbara Ortutay / Japan Today : Musk aims to ease concerns in address to Twitter workers Todd Spangler / Variety : Elon Musk Indicates Twitter Will Have Layoffs in Town Hall With Employees Antoinette Siu / The Wrap : Elon Musk Takes Questions From Twitter Employees: ‘Exceptional’ Staffers Could Remain Remote CNET : Elon Musk Reportedly Tells Twitter Employees He Wants 1 Billion Users Tweets: Alex Heath / @alexeheath : Elon Musk showed up 10 minutes late to his first meeting addressing Twitter employees, which is still ongoing. He dialed in from his phone handheld like this https://twitter.com/... Benny Johnson / @bennyjohnson : BREAKING: Leaked Internal Slack Messages Show Twitter Employees Reaction to @ElonMusk's #TwitterAllHands Call https://twitter.com/... Dan Primack / @danprimack : Twitter should have done the all-hands as a Spaces. Elizabeth Dwoskin / @lizzadwoskin : After listening to Elon address Twitter staff today, I get the sense that policing misinformation will be out the window. And his answer to a question about how he could regain trust was to say, 'be a top performer and if not, you're out.' W/@WillOremus https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... @mikeisaac : the twitter all-hands today was certainly leaky, but the twitter employee(s) leaking to Johnson know exactly what they're doing: Johnson now blasting out video/tweets with all of the names of employees pushing back against Elon https://twitter.com/... Alex Heath / @alexeheath : Elon says that if the company wants more people to use Twitter, they should mimic the approach of the super app WeChat in China. “you basically live on WeChat in China....if we can recreate that with Twitter we'll be a great success” @mikeisaac : we're still on question one: “Why do you love twitter,” and elon's answer was pretty long and rambling, but one thing he said was that he appreciated “Freedom of speech, and Freedom of Reach.” Renee DiResta / @noupside : Bit of a juxtaposition here. I am starting to think Bluesky has far more potential for designing a functional future communication platform than anything we will see from existing social platforms. https://twitter.com/... Alex Heath / @alexeheath : People should be allowed to “say pretty outrageous things within the law,” but it shouldn't be amplified. Repeats the mantra that freedom of speech isn't the same as freedom of reach. @cernovich : USA Today is a fact check partner for Facebook and maybe even Twitter. They just got busted produce fabricated news. Literally fake. Made up. Complete disinformation. Will Twitter be issuing a “deboost” penalty against USA TODAY. @elonmusk https://nypost.com/... Jennifer Elias / @jenn_elias : a normal all-hands meeting https://www.cnbc.com/... https://twitter.com/... Kenneth Li / @kenli729 : Reuters Explains: “When he turned off his video at the end of the Q&A, his avatar appeared to be two hands in the shape of the number 69, an apparent reference to a sex position, the source said.” https://www.reuters.com/... by @Sheila_Dang Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : So many leaks from this meeting might as well stream it https://twitter.com/... @mikeisaac : Musk is asked how his politcal views will affect the company? says he's a moderate. He voted democrat in the past, and noted that he voted for Flores, a mexican american politician. (An employee notes she is also a believer in QAnon) @mikeisaac : here's musk broadcasting from what appears to be a hotel room, on his phone! https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @mikeisaac : Elon gets a question on content moderationn issues and what should/shouldnt be allowed. He is more worried about whether or not people are seeing “boring content,” and that TikTok does a great job of keeping people entertained. Benny Johnson / @bennyjohnson : Full call here: https://www.youtube.com/... Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @Cernovich Wow @evafoxu : Elon Musk is aiming to significantly transform Twitter. He plans to purge it of bot/fake accounts, increase the number of real users, and allow free speech to flourish while boosting profitability. Employees who do their job responsibly will not be fired. https://www.tesmanian.com/... Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @bennyjohnson Interesting Sarah Zheng / @_szheng : “You basically live on WeChat in China because it's so useful and so helpful to your daily life. And I think if we could achieve that, or even close to that with Twitter, it would be an immense success.” https://www.vox.com/... Max Kennerly / @maxkennerly : A month ago he was tweeting that Twitter is bad because “you are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don't realize.” Now he's saying Twitter should mimic platforms that are far more driven by algorithmic content promotion. He's just making it up as he goes. https://twitter.com/... Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @EvaFoxU Exactly David Gilbert / @daithaigilbert : “When [Elon Musk] turned off his video at the end of the Q&A [with Twitter employees], his avatar appeared to be two hands in the shape of the number 69, an apparent reference to a sex position.” A troll to the end.... https://www.reuters.com/... @reckless : Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg vs Evan Spiegel in the battle to build a WeChat-style superapp for the United States is going to be a delight because Apple will ruthlessly put all those features in iMessage first https://www.theverge.com/... Donie O'Sullivan / @donie : The Holocaust. Aliens. Both discussed on Elon Musk's call with Twitter staff today. Reporting w/ @claresduffy https://www.cnn.com/... Donie O'Sullivan / @donie : “Anyone could just go into the middle of Times Square right now and say anything they want. They can just walk into the middle of Times Square and deny the Holocaust ... but that doesn't mean that needs to be promoted to millions of people...” https://www.cnn.com/... @hsajwanization : Twitter Product Managers now have a new direct line manager 😅... https://techcrunch.com/... @nycsouthpaw : Does this make any sense? What does money being digital have to do with Twitter taking on the brain damage of being a payments platform? https://twitter.com/... Mark Milian / @markmilian : Ok, but isn't this basically what Twitter already does? https://www.bloomberg.com/... Eric Newcomer / @ericnewcomer : The key is to tell conservatives you're on their team and then it doesn't matter what your actual policies are. https://twitter.com/... Steve Kovach / @stevekovach : Main takeaway from Elon Musk's all-hands meeting with Twitter: Employees are still concerned about issues related to remote work and layoffs, given Musk's past public comments. Musk did little to alleviate those concerns, per internal Slack messages. https://www.cnbc.com/... Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : I assume he didn't answer this question? https://twitter.com/... @nytimes : Elon Musk told Twitter employees in a live Q. and A. Thursday that the platform “should allow people to say what they want,” and he seemed preoccupied with people not seeing “boring” content. He also dodged a question about layoffs. Follow live updates. https://www.nytimes.com/... Kurt Wagner / @kurtwagner8 : somehow the discussion turned to aliens. Elon: “I have seen no actual evidence for aliens.” Peter Kafka / @pkafka : Here's the entire thing. All of it. The whole reason the world's richest man is obsessed with a smallish and barely profitable social network. https://twitter.com/... Kurt Wagner / @kurtwagner8 : Elon also said he wants t get to 1 billion users for Twitter. That would be a goal for him if he acquires the company. The meeting is now over. Quentin Hardy / @qhardy : Shocked to find out a certain billionaire doesn't really have a plan, but he thinks companies should get “healthy,” whatever that means, and a whole lot more customers would be good. Thoughts and prayers to everyone at Twitter trying to do their job and feed their families. Jordan Golson / @jlgolson : Have people never seen Elon speak? Of course he's winging it. He always speaks off the cuff. https://twitter.com/... Rat King / @mikeisaac : and on that note, that's a wrap! till round two, which Musk agreed to do in the future. check the live blog for all the updates I and others added that were not in tweet form. https://www.nytimes.com/... Anthony DeRosa / @anthony : Musk intends to be hands-on with Twitter, as he is with Tesla: “(Musk) said he wants to be involved in product...he does think people will need to listen to his input on features..."I do expect that they will listen to me in this regard."" - @MikeIsaac https://www.nytimes.com/... @mikeisaac : Musk floats the idea of tweets having an “irony flag” on a message, though that seemed like a half joke. I think the context was around intention of Tweets Casey Newton / @caseynewton : This is like if Grandpa Simpson bought Twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/... Peter Kafka / @pkafka : On Twitter, Elon is Elon. Over at NYT he's Mr. Musk. In both places he loves TikTok. https://twitter.com/... Alex Heath / @alexeheath : When asked why he loves Twitter, Elon says: “Some people use their hair to express themselves. I use Twitter” Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : Wall Street reacting to Elon's Twitter address: Huh? https://twitter.com/... Jay Yarow / @jyarow : Elon basically says job cuts coming to Twitter. “The company needs to get healthy.” https://www.cnbc.com/... Matt Rosoff / @mattrosoff : We have @lauren_feiner and others on the @CNBCtech team tweeting live updates from Elon Musk's address to Twitter employees here: https://twitter.com/... Erica Joy / @ericajoy : so he's not in the office? interesting! https://twitter.com/... James Pethokoukis / @jimpethokoukis : WFH only for Mars colonists https://twitter.com/... Matt Karolian / @mkarolian : Why isn't @elonmusk in the office? https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : The majority of Musk's *tweets* about the deal are negative! https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/... Rob Romano / @2aupdates : “ Elon Musk is expected to confirm his desire to own Twitter Inc. when he speaks to the social-media company's employees on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter.” https://www.wsj.com/... Matt Navarra / @mattnavarra : Elon Musk Expected to Reiterate Desire to Own Twitter in Upcoming Staff Meeting https://www.wsj.com/... See also Mediagazer