Elon Musk addressed the employees of Twitter for the first time on Thursday, projecting the need for “headcount rationalization,” though he gave few new details about the company’s $44 billion acquisition.
Musk Appearing by video call 10 minutes late in what turned out to be a question-and-answer session moderated by a Twitter executive, he pondered the existence of aliens and other space civilizations. He also said that the social media company should help “civilization and consciousness.”
The billionaire said he wants to increase the number of users of the service to at least 1 billion people and said advertising will continue to be important to the company, according to audio of the meeting.
“I think advertising is very important for Twitter,” he said. Musk. “I’m not against advertising. I would probably talk to advertisers and say something like, ‘Hey, let’s make sure the ads are as entertaining as possible.'”
Twitter employees flocked to an internal Slack channel during the session, posting memes and complaining that Musk he wasn’t giving helpful answers about his business vision and employee compensation.
They also demanded on Slack that the moderator put pressure on Musk about his opinion on telecommuting, at a time when Twitter allows employees to work relatively freely remotely or in the office.
Musk He said he thinks Twitter staff should gravitate towards working from an office, but was willing to make some exceptions. The trend should be “toward working in person, but if someone is extraordinary, then remote work may be fine,” he said.