Elon Musk spoke about Twitter at the world conference on February 14, 2023 and here is a transcript of that conversation. My goal/mission in this blog post is to preserve the important and visionary words of Elon Musk.  Enjoy.

Elon explains why he bought Twitter,

“I mean I thought about creating something from scratch but I thought Twitter would perhaps accelerate progress versus creating something from scratch by 3 to 5 years. 
I think we are seeing a tremendous technology acceleration that 3 to 5 years is actually worth a lot.  
I mean, I was a little worried about the direction that, and the effect of social media on the world and especially Twitter. I thought it was very important for there to be a maximally trusted sort of Digital Public Square where people within countries and internationally can communicate with the least amount of censorship allowed by law, and obviously that varies a lot by jurisdiction. 
I think in general, social media companies should adhere to the laws of countries and not try to put a *thumb on the scale beyond the laws of the countries. I think this is something that is probably agreeable to the legislators and to the people of most countries. 

So that’s the general idea, it’s just to reflect the values of the people as opposed to imposing the values of essentially San Francisco and Berkeley, which are somewhat of a niche ideology, as compared to the rest of the world. 

I think Twitter was doing a little too much to impose a niche 'San Francisco-Berkeley' ideology on the world.  You know, I thought it was important for the future of civilization to try to correct that *thumb on the scale if you will and just have Twitter more accurately reflect, like I said, the values of the people of Earth. That's the intention and hopefully we succeed in doing that.”

X.COM

Elon talks about his vision for the future of twitter,

“Well I think it would be, you know, have this long-term sort of vision of something called x.com from way back in the day which is sort of like an everything app. where it’s just maximally useful. 
It does payments, provides financial services, provides information flow, really anything digital. It also provides secure communications. 
You know, I think [the goal of x.com] is be as useful as possible, as entertaining as possible, and a source of truth if you want to find out what’s going on and what’s really going on then you should be able to go on the x app and find out. 
So it’s sort of a source of truth and a maximally useful system. And Twitter is essentially an accelerant to that sort of maximally useful everything app.”

Elon Musk explains Twitter’s Community Notes in simple terms

“I think there’s something that we’re putting a lot of efforts into called Community Notes. It’s currently just in English, but we will be expanding it to all languages. 
That is I think quite a good way to assess the truth of things where it’s the community itself basically the people of Earth who are basically, not exactly voting but competing to provide the most accurate information. 
So it’s sort of a competition for truth. I think it’s a very powerful concept to have a competition for truth, because you also said, like what is truth, it’s because what may be true to self, may not be viewed as true to others, but you want to have the closest approximation of that so I think the Community Notes thing is very powerful. 
I think we are trying to have as many organizations and people and institutions verified as being legitimately those people and organizations is important, and to have the organizational affiliation clearly identified so that if you want to find out if somebody’s actually, if an account is actually from a member of parliament or a journalist or if let’s say, a Twitter handle actually belongs to Disney corporation or something like that, you can go on Twitter and it’s sort of an identity layer of the Internet you can confirm that is, in fact, the case.  
I think once you’ve got these interlocking, sort of identities, it’s actually very hard to be deceptive in that case, and it’s also, you have a reputation to protect at that point. So I think then people are far more likely to be measured in their response and will be more reasonable, since they have reputational value at that point. 

So these are some of the ideas that I have, and you know I'm not saying that for sure it will succeed or that it’s going to be perfect but I am confident that it will over time head in a good direction. and I think that the evidence for that will be, do people find it useful?  
As we’re measuring sort of the total user minutes, but not just user minutes, unregretted used minutes which I think that that’s the key figure of merit. 
For example, TikTok has a very high usage but I often hear people say well. I spent two hours on TikTok, but I regret those two hours.  I’m not trying to knock TikTok, but it’s just we don’t want that to be the case with Twitter. 
We want to say like 'ok, you spent half an hour on Twitter, but you found it to be useful and entertaining, and a good thing in your life. and ultimately be a force for good for civilization, that’s the aspiration.”

The most effective way to use Twitter

Elon talked about how governments and organizations can best use Twitter,

"I think, generally, I would recommend really communicating a lot on Twitter. And I think it’s good for people to speak in their voice as opposed to how they think they should speak. Sometimes people think, ‘I should speak in this way that is expected of me,’ but it ends up sounding somewhat at times, stiff and not real. 
You know like if you read a press release from a corporation it just sounds like propaganda. I would encourage CEOs and companies and legislators and ministers and so forth to speak authentically. If there's a particular policy to explain it. 
I think sometimes there's a sometimes a concern about criticism but I think at the end of the day having some criticism is fine. It's really not that bad. I'm constantly attacked on Twitter, frankly. And I don't mind, you have to be somewhat thick-skinned I suppose at times you know because they really try and twist the knife. 
But I think as a forum for communication, its great. I would just encourage more communication and like I said, to sort of speak in an authentic voice.  Like sometimes people will have someone else be their sort of Twitter manager or something like that and I think people should just do their own tweets. 
And like sometimes you make a mistake or something, its fine. But I think, doing your own tweets, just like you would give a talk here or have a meeting at a summit, that's the way to do it is to actually do the tweets yourself and convey the message that you want directly.”

Single world government as a civilizational risk

“One thing I should say, I know this is called the World Government Summit, but I think we should be a little bit concerned about actually becoming too much of a single world government if I may say that we want to avoid creating a civilizational risk by having, frankly, this may sound a little odd, too much cooperation between governments.  

If you look at history and the rise and fall of civilizations where all throughout history civilizations have risen and fallen but it hasn't meant the doom of humanity as a whole because they've been all these separate civilizations that were separated by great distances. 

While Rome was falling, Islam was rising so you had, you know, the sort of caliphate doing incredibly well while Rome was doing terribly. That actually ended up being a source of preservation of knowledge and many scientific advancements.  

So I think we want to be a little bit cautious about being too much of a single civilization because if we are too much of a single civilization then the whole thing may collapse. 

I'm obviously not suggesting war or anything like that but I think we want to be a little bit wary of actually cooperating too much. It sounds a little odd but we want to have some amount of civilizational diversity such that if something does go wrong with some part of civilization that the whole thing doesn't collapse and humanity keeps moving forward.” - Elon Musk

Twitter’s next CEO?

Elon was asked if he has identified a CEO for Twitter and when he would announce who it will be,

"Well, I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it's in a financially healthy place and that the product roadmap is clearly laid out, so I'm guessing probably towards the end of this year should be good timing to find someone else to run the company.  I think it should be in a stable position around the end of this year."

Twitter is a Startup in Reverse

“Twitter is still somewhat of a startup in reverse and so there’s a lot of work here to get Twitter in sort of a stable position and, like I said, to really build the engine of software engineering at Twitter and really have a great product roadmap and the people in place to implement that product roadmap. And so it is not my intention to work like crazy, I mean I think I still am, I’m comfortable with a mere 80-hour workweek. That would be fine! That is what I would aspire to.”

CONCLUSION

I agree the ‘San Francisco-Berkeley’ ideology is niche. Elon Musk said he thinks its “important for the future of civilization to try to correct that thumb on the scale if you will and just have Twitter more accurately reflect the values of the people of Earth.”

*Thumb on the scale means “An act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction.”

Many people are excited about the future of x.com. Elon’s vision is for it to be as “useful as possible, as entertaining as possible, and a source of truth if you want to find out what’s going on and what’s really going on then you should be able to go on the x app and find out.”

A great way to understand Twitter’s Community Notes is as a competition for truth. In Elon’s words, “I think it’s a very powerful concept to have a competition for truth, because you also said, like what is truth, it’s because what may be true to self, may not be viewed as true to others, but you want to have the closest approximation of that.”

I agree with Elon Musk that the best tweets are genuine tweets and not those curated by a social media manager or a dry press release. Making mistakes in a tweet is okay and happens often to many people so it need not be scary and neither should criticism.

Elon cautioned against “being too much of a single civilization because if we are too much of a single civilization then the whole thing may collapse.” The way he explained it was appropriate for his audience of mostly middle eastern people at the World Government Summit, he said, “While Rome was falling, Islam was rising so you had, you know, the sort of caliphate doing incredibly well while Rome was doing terribly. That actually ended up being a source of preservation of knowledge and many scientific advancements.”

Twitter may have a new CEO near the end of 2023 and first Elon Musk will make certain Twitter is on track for healthy finances and a clearly laid out product roadmap.

^{Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – February 16, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.}