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Elon Musk says BBC’s Twitter tag will be changed from ‘government-funded media’ Elon Musk says BBC’s Twitter tag will be changed from ‘government-funded media’
(about 2 hours later)
Twitter owner says he has ‘utmost respect’ for broadcaster and that tag will be changed to ‘publicly funded’Twitter owner says he has ‘utmost respect’ for broadcaster and that tag will be changed to ‘publicly funded’
Twitter owner Elon Musk has said the social media site will update the BBC’s “government-funded media” tag after the broadcaster objected to the label. Elon Musk, Twitter’s billionaire owner, has said the social media platform will change the BBC’s label of “government-funded media” after the broadcaster objected to the tag.
The BBC contacted Twitter last week after the designation was attached to the main BBC account. The Tesla chief executive made the announcement during a wide-ranging interview with the corporation in which he also said his pain level from running the site has been “extremely high” but claimed the business is now “roughly breaking even”.
In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, Musk said he had the “utmost respect” for the organisation, adding: “We want [the tag] as truthful and accurate as possible – we’re adjusting the label to [the BBC being] publicly funded – we’ll try to be accurate.” The BBC contacted the company last week after the description was added to its main Twitter account. Musk said he had the “utmost respect” for the organisation, adding: “We want [the tag] as truthful and accurate as possible, we’re adjusting the label to [the BBC being] publicly funded, we’ll try to be accurate.”
He previously described the BBC as “among the least biased” news organisations. The South African-born billionaire, who bought Twitter for $44bn (£35.4bn) last October, also claimed in the interview that advertisers were returning to the site after many quit following his takeover of the social media site.
In a statement released in the wake of the “government-funded media” designation, the broadcaster said: “The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee.” Musk said: “It’s been really quite a stressful situation, over the last several months. Not an easy one.”
The government-funded label links to a page on Twitter’s help centre that says “state-affiliated media” are outlets where the government “exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution”. He admitted that mistakes had been made during his ownership but said: “All’s well that ends well.
That label was applied to US broadcaster NPR’s Twitter handle, but it has been changed to government-funded media – the same as the BBC account. “I feel like we’re headed to a good place. We’re roughly break-even, I think we’re trending towards being cashflow positive very soon, literally in a matter of months. The advertisers are returning.”
The BBC has always maintained its impartiality and operates through a Royal Charter agreed with the government, which says it must be independent. Asked if he had any regrets over his purchase of the company, Musk said the “pain level has been extremely high, this hasn’t been some kind of party”.
Britons pay a £159 licence fee each year to fund the corporation’s output, which is set by government but paid by individual households. He admitted he had wanted to pay less for Twitter after he said he found more automated bots on the network than he expected. He initially said he would not sell the site now if he was offered the $44bn he paid but later clarified that he would do so if could be sure that the buyer was committed to telling the truth.
While the BBC account, which has 2.2 million followers, has been given the label, much larger accounts associated with the corporation’s breaking news and sport output are not being described in the same way. Musk has come in for criticism for cutting almost half of Twitter’s staff last autumn. He said reducing the workforce had not been easy, and added he had cut Twitter staff numbers from “just under 8,000”, when he took over the business, to “1,500”.
The account mainly tweets about BBC-produced TV programmes, radio shows, podcasts and other non-news material. Musk described firing such large numbers of people as “not fun at all” and a process which, at times, could be “painful”.
He admitted that he does not fire all employees in person, adding: “It’s not possible to talk with that many people face to face.”
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Musk, who said he is no longer the chief executive of Twitter, also explained why he had tweeted in February that he would not wish the pain of running the social media site on anyone.
He described himself as having been “under constant attack”, including from the media, and said this hurt as he does not have “a stone-cold heart”.
Musk said: “If you’re under constant criticism and attack, and that gets fed to you nonstop, including through Twitter, it’s rough.”
He said he gets “a lot of negative feedback” but added he does not turn off replies and does not block anyone on Twitter.
Musk has previously described the BBC as “among the least biased” news organisations.
The broadcaster released a statement after being designated as “government-funded media”, saying: “The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee.”