Mike Wendling
US disinformation reporter

During the interview, Musk said that his efforts to delete bots - automated accounts - will decrease disinformation on the platform.

"My experience is there is less misinformation [on Twitter after the takeover] rather than more,” he told our reporter.

Many outside experts disagree. One study, external – and there are a quite a few others along the same lines – found that engagement with popular misinformation-spreading accounts spiked after Musk’s takeover.

“The acid test is people use the system and find it find it to be a good source of truth,” Musk insisted.

But he repeatedly questioned whether journalists were fair arbiters of truth and said he had more trust in “ordinary people”.

It's a curious position that ignores the forces that drive social media algorithms. For instance, emotive and provocative posts tend to get shared more regardless of whether they are true or false.

Musk has confirmed he will change the label on the BBC's Twitter profile from "government-funded media" to "publicly-funded".

It comes after the BBC contacted Twitter to object that its main BBC account had been labelled "government-funded".

Twitter's website defined "government-funded media" as an outlet where there may be "varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content".

In an interview with our correspondent James Clayton, Musk said he always wanted to be as "truthful and accurate as possible".

He said: "I think we're adjusting the label to be publicly-funded, which I think is not too objectionable. We're trying to be accurate."

He also confirmed he would change the label to "publicly-funded" for US radio broadcaster NPR.

Musk added he had the "utmost respect" for the BBC.

He previously described the broadcaster as "among the least biased" news organisations.

Last week speaking on the matter, the BBC said: "The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee."

Image source, .

In the interview, Musk said taking over Twitter has been painful, and that he has been "under constant attack".

But the billionaire defended carrying out mass sackings of staff following the takeover.

"The issue is like the company's going to go bankrupt if we do not cut costs immediately," he said.

"This is not a caring, uncaring situation. It's like if the whole ship sinks then nobody's got a job.

"What would you do? If you've four months to live, a 120 days, in a hundred and 20 days you're dead, so what do you want to do?

Read more:

• Twitter reportedly lays off 200 more employees
• Number of staff suing Twitter goes up daily - lawyer

Speaking with James Clayton, Musk talked about many things from the pain of owning Twitter to stopping himself tweeting after 3am - oh and he sometimes sleeps at the office.

James Clayton, the reporter who interviewed Elon Musk, says that Musk was "constantly trying to push back" and asking questions instead of answering them.

"He's a difficult person to interview - he laughs a lot and tries to wriggle out of questions," Clayton told the BBC News channel.

"But he was thinking about the questions and gave answers he thought about and he appeared to be genuinely dealing with the question in hand," Clayton says, quoting Musk's response when asked about whether TikTok should be banned: "He said 'probably it shouldn't be' but you got the sense he's actually thinking about some of these questions."

Clayton also remarks that out of 8,000 staff only about 1,500 are left.

Musk's interview "gave us some insight into the strange life of this billionaire", a former Twitter vice-president has said.

Bruce Daisley, who ran Twitter in Europe, Middle East and Africa, told BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "He confessed today that the only reason he went through with buying Twitter was because he believed a judge would force him to go through with the transaction.

"He's never admitted that till now, so it was a very whimsical interview... but he gave us some insight into the strange life of this billionaire."

He also suggested the interview showed he was not always consistent in what he says.

Daisley added: "He seems to be a very enigmatic figure."

James Clayton is reflecting on his unexpected interview with Elon Musk.

Speaking on the BBC's TV news channel, our North America tech reporter says there were some bizarre moments in the interview, including when Musk joked that his dog is now Twitter's CEO.

"That is his sense of humour and he's always been like that," Clayton said, adding: "It's baked into him, he's always going to say those things."

Clayton added that Musk seems to use humour to deflect from other, harder issues.

April 2022: Musk becomes Twitter's largest shareholder with a 9.2% stake in the social media company

April 2022: The board of Twitter accepts a $44bn (£34.5bn) takeover offer from with Musk. He also calls for a series of changes, from relaxing its content restrictions to eradicating fake accounts

July 2022: Musk seeks to end his bid to buy Twitter, alleging multiple breaches of the agreement. He backs out claiming Twitter failed to provide enough information on the number of spam and fake accounts

July 2022: A US judge orders that Twitter's lawsuit against Elon Musk go to trial in October, a blow to the world's richest man who had asked for a delay. Twitter hopes that the court will order Musk to complete the takeover at the agreed price of $54.20 per share

October 2022: Musk completes his $44bn takeover of Twitter

November 2022: Musk says he has "no choice" but to slash the company's workforce as the firm is losing more than $4m (£3.5m) a day

November 2022: Twitter stops enforcing its policy on misleading information about coronavirus

December 2022: Musk says he will resign as Twitter's chief executive officer when he finds someone "foolish enough to take the job", following a Twitter poll in which 57.5% of users vote "yes" to him quitting the role

March 2023: The Twitter owner announces a shake-up of the social media platform's paid Twitter Blue feature

Elon Musk confirmed he would change the BBC Twitter label to "publicly funded" after last week's row over the BBC account's tag inaccurately indicating the corporation is "government funded".

If you're just joining us, here's a recap of some of the highlights of Elon Musk's interview with the BBC's James Clayton.

• Musk said that he wanted to pay less for Twitter after discovering, he says, more automated bots on the network. But later in the conversation he said he now wouldn't sell even if offered what he had paid for the company
• The Twitter CEO said the company is "roughly" breaking even - a vague claim that we can't immediately verify
• Musk said that he was working to clamp down on misinformation and challenged our reporter over reports that hate speech is on the rise on the platform
• As is usual with the billionaire, he peppered the conversation with dirty jokes and less-serious statements - saying, for instance, that his dog is now Twitter's CEO

Elon Musk doesn't often give interviews, and last night's came about pretty unexpectedly - the BBC only had a few hours' notice - not long at all for a high-profile, wide ranging and relatively long interview.

James Clayton, the BBC's North America tech reporter, who interviewed Musk in the Twitter offices in San Francisco - will be sharing his thoughts about the interview on this page in a short while.

Mike Wendling
US disinformation reporter

While answering a question from another far-right influencer - he follows several on Twitter - Musk defended a man convicted of tricking people out of their vote during the 2016 US presidential election.

Douglass Mackey was convicted last month, external of using his popular Twitter account to post false information about "voting via text" - something that's not possible in US elections.

Prosecutors said 4,900 people had texted the number hoping to vote for Hillary Clinton. Mackey was convicted of depriving them of their right to cast a legal vote, and now faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Musk agreed with the influencer and said the conviction was "over the top".

Let's go back now to a question from our correspondent on whether we are seeing a huge moment for AI.

Musk said AI had been going a long time but needed an "easy interface" like chatbot ChatGPT had provided.

He had been warning about AI safety for decades, he said. "There should be a regulatory body to make sure it doesn't present a danger to the public."

Last month the Twitter boss was among key figures in AI who called for training of powerful AI systems to be suspended amid fears of a threat to humanity.

Mike Wendling
US disinformation reporter

After he took over the company, Musk promised to clean house.

Part of that process was the "Twitter Files". Twitter released emails about previous management decisions to several hand-picked journalists who wrote long Twitter threads based on the information.

They included allegations of censorship and undue control by the US government and other powerful people.

The files and the claims made about them have been the subject of much debate - and in recent days Musk has also had public spats with some of his chosen reporters. In response to a question he indicated that the project was coming to an end.

"Let's move on to the future," he said.

Musk bids farewell to his Twitter users on Twitter Spaces and thanks those who joined for listening.

But we are not going anywhere - stay with us for reaction to this extraordinary couple of hours spent by the BBC in the company of Twitter's boss.

The conversation - between several listeners and Musk - turned at one point to AI and the use of that technology in deep fakes and other examples of false news. They referred to examples of fake videos involving politicians like US President Joe Biden.

Musk said the advent of such tech these days made "trying to figure out what's real is really hard".

He added that at Twitter: "We're going to be very focused in figuring out what's real and if not real - trying to address it." He did not provide further examples of how Twitter might try and achieve that.

He also argued that for breaking news "If you want real time in news, this is the best place, it's Twitter".

Our correspondent thanks Musk for his time and tries, once again, to bring the interview to an end.

Musk is still talking to users via Twitter Spaces - and asks if anyone has any final questions before he "signs off".

There's some back and forth between him and those listening in to the interview who want to ask general questions about Twitter - and for now it seems Musk intends to stay put.

Our correspondent has tweeted his perspective. Musk is continuing the chat on Twitter, taking questions from the about three million people following the chat on Twitter spaces.

Our technology correspondent asks about doxing - the release of private information about individuals online, usually with malicious intent - and whether the banning of the Twitter account Elonjet, which tracked Musk's private jet's movements, constituted overly favourable behaviour towards Musk.

Musk responds that the account was using non-public information combined with public information to track his movements, and this arguably constituted doxing.

Musk took questions from a wide variety of people listening into the conversation.

The first came from a producer with the far-right network Newsmax. Alex Lorusso asked whether there could be benefits for long-time Twitter Blue subscribers.

Musk then took a question from a cryptocurrency designer who made a crude joke - something of a pattern in this discussion.