Musk doesn’t want to be Twitter CEO, ‘but people need to listen to me’

Elon Musk met with Twitter employees for the first time last week as the billionaire’s plan to take over the platform goes ahead.

During the meeting, the billionaire boss of SpaceX and Tesla said he had no interest in becoming Twitter’s new CEO.

“There are many responsibilities of being a CEO. And I just want to make sure the product moves fast and well,” Musk said during the hour-long meeting.

“I don’t really care about the title. But people have to listen to me,” he added.

Musk doesn’t put much stock in traditional job titles. Last year, a regulatory filing revealed that he had changed his job title at Tesla from CEO to “Technoking.” Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn was also renamed “Master of Coin.”

“All these other titles are basically made up,” Musk said at the Wall Street Journal’s 2021 CEO Council Summit.

“So CEO is a made-up title, CFO is a made-up title, General Counsel… They don’t mean anything.”

At the meeting with Twitter employees, Musk explained that he’s always been more concerned with manufacturing and engineering at SpaceX and Tesla than with the administrative tasks that CEOs typically have to deal with.

He said his focus will be similar at Twitter and once his £43bn acquisition is complete he will prioritize the social network’s “software and product design”.

“When I say, ‘Hey, we need to improve the product like this and add these features,’ I expect people to listen to me on that front,” he told Twitter staffers, according to Business Insider.

During the meeting, Musk mentioned several goals he has for the company, including reaching one billion daily users and “advancing civilization and consciousness.”

He also said he would be interested in Twitter becoming similar to WeChat, a Chinese social media, messaging and payments app.

“You can basically live off WeChat,” Musk said.

When asked about monitoring harmful content, Musk reiterated his view that people should be able to express their opinions, even if they’re “extreme,” as long as they don’t break the law. It’s unclear what, if anything, he would do to stop the spread of misinformation.

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