The Elon Musk-Twitter saga has entered a notable new chapter.  The Tesla and SpaceX CEO spoke to Twitter employees yesterday for the first time since he agreed to acquire the social media company.  Musk reportedly spoke on a range of topics and started the conversation by sharing his love of Twitter and by reiterating his desire to buy the company.  Jeff Brain, CEO of CloutHub, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.

Closing Bell

Key Takeaways From Elon Musk's First All-Hands Meeting With Twitter Employees

come back to closing bell on cheddar news. I'm Michelle Castillo, the Elon musk twitter saga has entered a notable new chapter SpaceX and Tesla Ceo spoke to twitter workers yesterday for the first time since he agreed to acquire the social media company. Must reportedly spoke on a range of topics and started the conversation by sharing his love of twitter and reiterating his desire to buy the company. Joining us now is Jeff brian, he's the ceo of the social network cloud hub. So Jeff thanks so much for joining us. What do you think was the biggest takeaway from us first all hands meeting with twitter employees? Well, first of all, the fact that he met with him, I think that's a good step. You know, it's amazing how big a story this has become, right him, him wanting to buy twitter and how the sides have lined up, you know, free speech censorship and and how big an issue that is. Um you know, it'll be interesting to see if he goes through with it. I mean, it sounds like he wants to proceed, but there's, you know, he's challenged with the number of bots that he's finding out and uh, you know, it's also, you know, differences in culture between his, his, his approach and, and twitter's approach of running a business must pointed out that layoffs are likely due to twitter's revenue being less than what the company spends each year. He also said layoffs would not affect those seen as quote, a significant contributor to the company. So what do you make of these comments, especially because current ceo parag Agarwal has been trying to stave off those layoff years and what do you think it could mean for the future of twitter? Well in your prior segment, you're referred to my space, right. And and we've seen platforms come and go, Twitter is a troubled platform Twitter at most ever had 336 million people. While all the other platforms have gone on to a billion plus, they've also struggled financially over the years With and and they have not done a good job of advertising and building a revenue source. So it might be in order to save Twitter because quite frankly, if Ellen doesn't buy Twitter, it's very likely Twitter is going to go the way of my space. It's, it's been dwindling, it's now at 217 million people, 100 million lesson and they suspect that 20% of that is bought, So that would mean another 40 million are not real members. So it might be that in order to save twitter, Ellen has to go through some tough measures. It's like, you know, sometimes we have to sacrifice a little bit to save, you know more, I'm so glad you brought up those bots because you know, musk has had some issue with these bots or these automated spam accounts? It's his biggest concern and of course that's led him to putting off the acquisition or at least putting it on hold until past may, what are some of your thoughts on these twitter bots. And do you think must concerns? It seems like you agree that there is some concern about them. Well, anybody who's been on Twitter knows their spots, right? I mean we've seen it. I mean you can see an account typically there, you know 10 year old counts and they have like 30 followers and they followed several 1000 people but they only have 30 followers. So you kind of identify them, we've all suspected them. In fact, that's a, that's kind of what was a part of Twitter's culture at one point. Um but let's look at it this way, if you're buying an apartment building and you're told it had a 5% vacancy rate And then you found out I had a 20% vacancy rate during your due diligence, you would want to re address the issue of buying it or or negotiating the price because those are going to be accounts that are never going to buy the products advertised on the platform and those are going to be accounts that will never subscribe and and that's a, you know, change that Ellen is looking at making to twitter, which is to have subscriptions And so you know, they're not paying customers bots and so it's, it's legitimate to say, Hey, wait a minute, if if 20% of your 217 million accounts are not real? We have to have a conversation about it now musk was also asked to clarify his stance on freedom of speech as it pertains to twitter and this is what he said, it's more important to make twitter as attractive as possible and that means not showing people content that they would find offensive. So what do you make of these comments and what changes do you expect musk to make to twitter around that area of freedom of speech? Well I think, you know, moderation and this issue of free speech and censorship is is the toughest part of running a platform where do you draw the line, what's what's the appropriate steps to take if somebody violates it? And I think the criticism longstanding of twitter has been a bit of an inconsistency in their application of their moderation policy. Um I think many people would be just really happy if it became consistent. You know, it seems that one day this is the rule next day, that's rule I I know a guy that at 540,000 people on twitter, he came over to cloud hub but he actually complained about wearing a mask. His own mask. You know, not about telling other people not to wear a mask. He said I don't like wearing a mask and they actually censored him and and b platform for that, you know that was the height of the the pandemic. But you know that's a pretty harsh measure for somebody complaining about their thoughts on it. So I think there needs to be some clarification on what's free speech, what's not and you know what's allowed, what's not is what I mean. Now quickly before we go, Twitter currently has about 230 million daily active users and Musk said yesterday he wants to see Twitter reached, reached at least a billion users. So do you think this is just a pipe dream or is must the man to make it happen? Well, anybody that studied social media knows there's a reason twitter has not grown beyond 330 million at their peak. Um what people use social media for is to socialize okay, that's why facebook instagram Snapchat, youtube, you know so many of them have gone over the billion mark, some of them into the two billion mark and twitter really didn't allow that twitter was a micro blogger where you, where you report, report what you're doing to your friends throughout the day but it really isn't engagement really what we do down twitter is we go down the list. I like that, I like that oh that's my friend all like his but it's not socializing and I think what Ellen will have to do if he wants to make it go over a billion people is to change the nature of, so you know, twitter to be more of socializing, right? We all get on social media cause we want to connect. Um and and that's what his challenge will be. Well, thanks to Jeff brian, he's the ceo of cloud hub.