On Thursday, Elon Musk appeared at an all-hands meeting of Twitter employees, his first since announcing his bid to buy the company.Appearing via his phone from what looked like a hotel room, Musk elaborated on his plans for the company, should his acquisition go through. And while Musk continued to frame the purchase through a lens of “free speech” (he reaffirmed that he thinks users should be allowed to say “pretty outrageous things,” according to Bloomberg), he also revealed a bit more detail about a Twitter product under his ownership, and it’s a model that would look familiar to Hollywood.More from The Hollywood ReporterSpecifically, Musk suggested that Twitter’s future is tied to the larger “creator economy,” with transactions taking place on the platform and users being fed content that is interesting.For the first time, Musk said that advertising will continue to be an important revenue stream for Twitter alongside any potential subscription, per Bloomberg. There had been questions about his commitment to advertising, and multiple attendees of Twitter’s Newfront presentation last month said that the event left them uncertain where the company would stand on ads moving forward.He also praised TikTok for keeping users “entertained” and emphasized that he wanted to make sure the network didn’t become “boring” for users, per The New York Times.Indeed, Musk seemed preoccupied with other apps, citing WeChat (and its commerce dominance in China) and YouTube with its large base of creators. He argued that those other apps, with their more vibrant content base, had an easier time monetizing their products than Twitter.That being said, he also shared the story of buying what he called a “scammy product” based on a YouTube ad, per Bloomberg, and said that while he wanted ads to be “entertaining,” the company should avoid taking money to promote “bad products.”Story continuesMusk also reiterated his desire to make any content algorithms “open-source,” so users can see how and why their content spreads (or doesn’t), and suggested that he may make users pay to verify themselves on the service.He added that he wants to make it much harder for bots to operate on the platform, though he did not bring up his legal letter in which he requested access to Twitter’s data, so that his team could hunt for bots themselves.![]()
Click here to read the full article.
