Musk says Twitter used to be run like ‘glorified activist organization’

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Monday mocked the social media company’s previous ownership for overseeing an “absurdly overstaffed” operation run like a “glorified activist organization.” 

In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Musk joked that running Twitter after letting go of 80% of its staff in the days after his October 2022 takeover wasn’t such a tall task because he wasn’t concerned about censoring users. 

“Turns out, you don’t need all that many people to run Twitter,” the billionaire business tycoon told Carlson after confirming that 80% of the company’s employees were fired or left voluntarily after his $44 billion purchase of the social media platform. 

An incredulous Carlson noted that 80% “is a lot” of people to have leave, to which Musk responded: “I mean, if you’re not trying to run some sort of glorified activist organization, and you don’t care that much about censorship, then you can really let go of a lot of people it turns out.” 

“I think we just had a situation at Twitter where it was absurdly overstaffed,” Musk argued, comparing Twitter to a “group text service at scale.”

 “Like how many people are really needed for that?” he added. 

Musk, who also owns spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX and electric car company Tesla, went on to criticize the pace at which a bloated Twitter was making improvements to the platform over the years, calling it a “comedy situation.” 

“If you look at the product development over time with Twitter – so like years versus product improvements – it’s like a pretty flat line. So what are they doing?” Musk told Carlson. 

“It took a year to add an edit button that doesn’t work most of the time. I mean, this is, I feel it was a comedy situation here,” a bemused Musk said. 

“You’re not making cars, you know, it’s very difficult to make cars or get rockets to orbit. So you know, the real question is like, how did it get so absurdly overstaffed? This is insane,” he added.

With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, Musk told Carlson that he believes Twitter will once again “play a significant role” in electoral contests “not just domestically but internationally.”

“The goal of new Twitter is to be as fair and even-handed as possible. So not favoring any political ideology,” he said, while later ripping Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for political contributions to Democrats that he argues makes it impossible for Facebook to be unbiased. 

“My understanding is that [Zuckerberg] spent $400 million fundamentally in support of Democrats. Is that accurate or not accurate?” Musk asked Carlson, who responded that it was accurate.

“Does that sound unbiased to you?” Musk then asked. 

The Twitter CEO was referencing $419 million in donations from Zuckerberg and his wife to the Center for Technology and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research, which helped turn out the vote for Democrats in 2020 and put President Biden over the top in key swing states. 

When asked if former President Donald Trump – a formerly prolific tweeter who was permanently banned from the platform after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol Building – will start tweeting again now that he’s been reinstated, Musk was uncertain. 

“Well, that’s obviously up to him,” Musk said, adding that he didn’t vote for Trump.

“I actually voted for Biden, not saying I’m a huge fan of Biden, because I think that would probably be inaccurate. But you know, we have difficult choices to make in these presidential elections,” he said, noting that he would prefer “a normal person with common sense” to be in the Oval Office.