In his first public remarks about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the social media platform’s co-founder Evan Williams said he was initially excited about the prospect.
As he told host Emily Chang in the first episode of her Bloomberg series “The Circuit,” in a clip released ahead of the show’s premiere Thursday night, “I was like, Elon? Holy moly, he does crazy things. This will be interesting and fun. We’ll see what happens.”
Williams later admitted he can’t fully endorse Musk’s changes to Twitter, which have resulted in the mass exit of advertisers and users and a disturbing rise in hate speech. “I don’t think he’s dialed it in quite right, yet,” Williams told Chang.
“We might differ on that,” said Jason Goldman, former Twitter VP of product, who is also interviewed in the episode. “Well, it’s gone pretty poorly. I mean, just objectively speaking.”
Williams, who is no longer a Twitter shareholder, added, “I think [Musk is] brilliant. But no one’s brilliant on everything.” He also shared that he was “sad when the purchase actually went through.”
Since the Musk takeover 75% of its employees have been laid off or resigned in protest. Musk recently stepped down as CEO, appointing Linda Yaccarino to take the reins, but also suffered the embarrassment of a botched launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign for president.
“The Circuit With Emily Chang,” airs Thursdays, streaming at 8 p.m. E.T. on Bloomberg.com, the Bloomberg app on Connected TV Devices and on Bloomberg TV at 10 p.m. ET.
