Musk wants Twitter to be more like WeChat, to allow 'outrageous' comments

In his first direct call with Twitter employees, Elon Musk briefed them about his plans once he takes over the platform, including making it more like TikTok and WeChat and allowing "outrageous comments". The Tesla CEO, however, clarified that such comments shouldn't be amplified.

Musk told Twitter employees that the platform needs to become more like WeChat and TikTok if it wants to achieve his goal of reaching one billion users.

"There's no WeChat equivalent outside of China. You basically live on WeChat in China. If we can recreate that with Twitter, we'll be a great success," he told Twitter staff via a virtual meeting late on Thursday.

"I think Twitter can be much better about informing people of serious issues," he added.

Twitter should be "contributing to a stronger, longer lasting civilisation where we are better able to understand the nature of reality".

On bots, he said that "it needs to be much more expensive to have a troll army".

The Tesla CEO has threatened to stop the $44 billion deal over the presence of an actual number of bots on the platform.

Responding to an employee's question, Musk said he believed people should be able to "say pretty outrageous things within the law" but that such speech shouldn't necessarily be amplified, reports The Verge.

He told employees he is in favour of having users pay to be verified and prioritising them in how Twitter ranks the tweets people see.

Musk has criticised Twitter's decision to ban former President Donald Trump on the platform, and he will reverse the ban if the acquisition is successful.

Musk also clarified that those doing "excellent" work should be allowed to continue working from home.

"If someone can only work remotely, and they're exceptional, it wouldn't make sense to fire them," Musk said.