Buying Twitter 'is Not a Way To Make Money,' Says Musk

Speaking for the first time since news broke of his attempts to buy all of Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his offer had been made for the public good. From a report: Musk emphasized that he was motivated by the public interest value of the platform. "Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square. So it's just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they're able to speak freely within the bounds of the law," Musk said. Musk was speaking at TED 2022 conference in Vancouver. Asked why he wanted to buy Twitter, Musk opened with a joke. "I don't know," Musk told a live audience. "A little bird tweeted in my ear or something." To protect that venue, Musk went on to say he believes Twitter should "open source the algorithm" in order to build trust and ensure availability. "The code should be on Github so people can look through it," Musk said. Musk insisted that buying Twitter wasn't an economic move for him. "This is not a way to sort of make money. My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important," he says. "So the future of civilization, but you don't care about the economics at all." Musk said he has a Plan B if Twitter rejects his offer, without offering more details.

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