Elon Musk: The CEO of Twitter and the C.E.O. of a Silicon Valley Cosmic Microphone Network (SMM)

He said the number of people on payroll was down from a high of more than 8000 when he took over. He said the company needed to take drastic action to avoid going bankrupt. But he added that it was “not fun at all” to fire people, and admitted that not everyone had been told in person: “It’s not possible to talk with that many people face to face.”

He tried to withdraw from the deal because he was concerned about how many bot accounts it had. He has made a number of changes including: firing top executives, slashing jobs, and implementing new policies on how user accounts are verified or labeled.

Elon Musk gave one his most extensive interviews since promising a series of big changes to Twitter that he hopes will return the money-losing social media platform to profitability. In a wide-ranging discussion with the BBC that was also broadcast on Twitter, and was at times full of contradictions, regrets and dog jokes, Musk defended his management of the company and gave an update on layoffs, cash flow, the status of the blue checks and who might succeed him as C.E.O.

On why he bought Twitter: Mr. Musk admitted that he went ahead with the $44 billion acquisition because he believed he would lose his legal case to try and back out of it. Buying Twitter has come with “emotional strain,” he added, saying running it had been “painful.” He said he still thought buying it was the right thing to do.