Elon Musk says Twitter ‘not on the fast lane to bankruptcy anymore’

Elon Musk says Twitter is “not on the fast lane to bankruptcy anymore”, but admits there is “still much work to do”.

Since he took control of the social networking platform in October, having paid $44bn (£38bn) for it, Musk has not had an easy ride.

He made a number of controversial policy decisions and lost many major advertisers as concern grew about the platform’s direction – and about its ability to pay interest on the $13bn (£10.8bn) debt he took on to buy it.

Last month, within two weeks of buying the company, he warned Twitter employees that the company may not “survive the upcoming economic downturn”.

In a podcast released over the weekend, he told All-In: “It has been quite a rollercoaster… It has its highs and lows, to say the least, but overall it seems to be going in a good direction.

“We’ve got the expenses reasonably under control, so the company’s not on the fast lane to bankruptcy anymore.”

Later in a tweet, he added: “Twitter isn’t secure yet, just not in the fast lane to bankruptcy. Still much work to do.”

‘My error rate will be less over time’

He also promised the podcast that there would be “fewer gaffes in future”.

“If you’re going to swing for the fences, you’re going to strike out a bit more,” he said.

“But we’re going to swing for the fences here at Twitter, and we’re going to do it quickly.

“My error rate and sort of being the chief twit will be less over time but, in the beginning, we’ll make a lot more mistakes because I’m new… hey, I just got here, man.

“If you look at the actual amount of improvement that has happened at Twitter in terms of having costs that aren’t insane and shipping product that, on balance, is good, I think that’s great – we’re executing well and getting things done.”

Read more:
Trying to work out Musk’s grand Twitter strategy is pointless – he doesn’t have one
A profile of Elon Musk: The ‘poster child for disruption’

Musk, one of the world’s richest people, also owns SpaceX and Tesla.

Tesla investors have recently raised concerns that his loyalty to the electric car-maker could be suffering due to the amount of time he is spending on Twitter.

Tesla stock has lost around 70% of its value this year, and Musk has sold billions of dollars-worth of his own holdings in the company.

A few days ago he said that he feared a serious recession next year and had sold stock to “make sure, like, there’s powder dry…to account for a worst case scenario”.