As we’ve covered, Twitter employees are none-too-happy that Elon Musk has purchased the company, and their loud displeasure even led to executives taking the step of locking down the platform’s source code.
An internal all-hands call was held late Monday in which CEO Paral Agarwal and board member Bret Taylor fielded questions from staff. The call lasted approximately 45 minutes, and the audio was leaked to Project Veritas. In an email, Project Veritas listed some of the highlights of the call (emphasis mine):
Bret Taylor, Twitter Board Member: “I also just want to acknowledge all the emotions of today. It is an emotional day. I want to acknowledge it.”
• Taylor: “By law, we are required to act in the best interest of our shareholders.”
• Taylor: “I can’t speak to why people leak [information to journalists], but people do. I can’t imagine how disruptive it was for all of you.”
• Parag Agrawal, Twitter CEO: “It’s important to acknowledge that all of you have many different feelings about what is happening.”
• Agrawal: “Many of you are concerned, some of you excited, many people here are waiting to understand how this goes and have an open mind.”
• Agrawal: “The role of our policies and the capabilities we’ve built around content moderation are fundamental to keeping Twitter safe and growing.”
• Agrawal: “We’ll be finding a way to have Elon talk with all of you at the soonest possible opportunity.”
• Agrawal: “As you’ve heard from all of us, we don’t have all the answers.”
Agarwal’s comment about the content moderation policies indicate that he might be prepping to challenge his new boss’s views on free speech. How this all plays out will be very interesting and will likely have implications far beyond Twitter.
Story cited here.
