Dubai: There will be a new CEO at Twitter, most likely this year itself. That's from Elon Musk, the incumbent, speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai.
“I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it's in a financially healthy place, and the product roadmap is clearly laid out,” said Musk. “I don't know, (but) I'm guessing probably towards the end of this year (for the new CEO).”
It has been a tumultuous time for the social media platform, first with Musk's audacious takeover and then the subsequent high-profile changes to personnel and processes at Twitter.
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Musk has faced criticism for the nothing-less-than sweeping changes, which included firing more than half of the staff and reversing previous bans on user accounts. Additionally, he was urged to shift his focus back to Tesla, the EV maker whose share prices have been dropping recently.
Despite all this, Musk has spent significant time on the social platform, tweeting and engaging with users. In his virtual address at WGS, Musk stated it is important for individuals to 'speak in their voice' and 'convey the message that you want to directly'.
He emphasized that it is best to tweet directly instead of relying on someone else to do it for you.
Tesla focus
Tesla went through some very difficult times where it was on the 'ragged edge of survival and if I didn't give it everything I got, the company could have easily gone bankrupt', said Musk. “It was really on the verge of bankruptcy for quite a while.
“I don't mean to suggest complacency at this point, but you know it does require much less work to operate Tesla now versus say in the 2017-19 timeframe,” he added. “It's not at multiple risks of supply. It's achieved economies of scale that make it you know, not on the ragged edge of survival.”
Twitter, on the other hand, is still somewhat of a startup in reverse, said Musk. “And so there's a lot of work required here to get Twitter to a stable position,” he said. “And, like said, to really build the engine of engineering of software engineering at Twitter and to have a good product roadmap and, and the people in place to implement that product roadmap.”
Call for regulation
Musk, 51, said AI is something we need to be concerned about, especially the safety aspect of it.
Hinting at ChatGPT, he said that he played ‘a significant role’ in the creation of OpenAI. “This has illustrated to people just how advanced AI has become. It has been there for a while, it just didn't have a user interface that was accessible to most people,” he said. “So what ChatGPT has done is just put in an accessible user interface on AI technology that has been present for a few years. And they're much more advanced versions that are coming out.”
Tesla chief was interviewed virtually by Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi, the United Arab Emirates' minister of cabinet affairs who is chairman of the summit.
Musk said that governments should regulate these technologies ‘ASAP’ as they pose a bigger risk to society. “We should probably have a similar sort of regulatory oversight for AI because it is a bigger risk to society than cars or planes and that's basically upside down AI.”
He said that if something goes wrong due to AI and if our reaction time is slow, it could pose a threat to human civilization. “AI is both positive and negative, it has great promise and capability, but also comes with great danger.”
