Elon Musk has given in to the conflict with the BBC. He had labeled the British broadcaster as a “state-funded” medium on the Twitter platform he controls, but now it is to be changed to “publicly funded”, as the 51-year-old announced in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday. “We try to be accurate.”
The BBC had protested the recently added designation on its Twitter account. “The BBC is independent and always has been,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “We are funded by the British public through license fees.” A few hours after the interview, the name initially remained unchanged.
Previously, the independent US broadcaster NPR had temporarily been given the label of a “state-controlled” broadcaster on its Twitter account, which Musk then changed to “state-funded” and thus also awarded to the BBC. NPR has since announced that it will be shutting down its more than 50 Twitter accounts; the new classification undermines the network’s credibility because it falsely suggests that it is not editorially independent, NPR said.
Musk described his relationship with the media in the BBC interview as “love-hate relationship – but probably more hate”. He also confirmed there that the Twitter workforce had shrunk from around 8,000 to around 1,500 employees since his takeover last October. It was “painful” to fire so many people. Meanwhile, Twitter is only making minimal losses after many advertisers had left the company and are now said to be returning. But Musk also said he would be willing to resell Twitter if the “right person” came along.
He also offered a tip for himself in the BBC interview: “I think I shouldn’t tweet after 3 a.m.”