“Can we travel to other star systems and see if there are alien civilizations?” he mused.
CEOs vs Aliens
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk addressed Twitter employees for the very first time today, months after announcing plans to buy the social network.
But in one peculiar moment, Musk deviated from the discussion of potential layoffs and content moderation to an entirely unexpected topic: aliens.
According to CNBC‘s reporting on the closed-door meeting, Musk took the time to discuss human consciousness and how he still had yet to see any actual evidence of aliens.
“Can we travel to other star systems and see if there are alien civilizations?” he reportedly said during the meeting, as quoted by Insider, adding that there could be “long dead” civilizations out there to be discovered as well.
ET Distraction
Musk may have failed to read the room, with a potentially drastic restructuring unsettling current Twitter employees. Aside from the alien remarks, the billionaire CEO didn’t rule out the possibility of layoffs if Twitter keeps spending more than it makes.
Musk also reiterated that he’ll allow users to “say pretty outrageous things within the law,” while adding that these potentially hurtful comments shouldn’t necessarily be amplified.
He also argued that he’d like to start charging users to verify their identities.
In short, the topic of aliens and human consciousness are well trodden talking points for Musk — but was this really the most appropriate time to bring them up, with tensions high and thousands of livelihoods on the line?
Regardless, it underscored the number one rule of Elon Musk: expect the unexpected.
READ MORE: Elon Musk veered into talking about aliens during his meeting with Twitter employees, telling them he hasn’t seen evidence to suggest they’re real [Insider]
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