'Is TikTok Destroying Civilization?' Elon Musk Tweets Even As Reports Say He Wants Twitter To Be Like It

Elon Musk reportedly said at his meeting with Twitter employees that he recently tried TikTok for the first time and found it to be doing a 'great job of making sure you're not bored'. 

A file photo of Tesla chief Elon Musk speaking during an interview with head of TED Chris Anderson (out of frame) at the TED2022: A New Era conference in Vancouver, Canada in April 2022.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared a cryptic post on Twitter early Saturday, asking if the Chinese video sharing app, TikTok, is “destroying civilization”. He said some people do think so. The post came shortly after several media reports said he told Twitter employees at his meeting with them Thursday that he wanted the microblogging site to be more like TikTok, and also WeChat. He reportedly said at the meeting that he recently tried TikTok for the first time and found it to be doing a “great job of making sure you're not bored". 

In his tweet, however, he asked, “Is TikTok destroying civilization? Some people think so”, and added in a subsequent post: “Or perhaps social media in general”.

Is TikTok destroying civilization? Some people think so.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2022

The Thursday meeting was the billionaire's first with his future employees, and he spoke about various ways to "improve" the platform and its operations.

A report in The Verge said Musk told Twitter employees his plan to hit 1 billion users, and said the platform needs to become more like WeChat and TikTok, both Chinese companies, if it wanted to achieve the goal.

Quoting employees who heard the remarks he made at the virtual meeting, the report said Musk complimented TikTok for its algorithm that ensures it doesn’t become “boring”. “...we could hone Twitter in the same way to be interesting,” he was quoted as saying.

According to a report in Insider, which claimed to have heard a recording of the meeting, Musk said: "It (TikTok) does a great job of making sure you're not bored."  

Musk also reportedly compared using TikTok to the experience of Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD, a condition in which people have trouble focusing on one task at a time.

"I mean, it does just feel like ADD. But like, next level," he was quoted as saying.

According to the Insider report, he said he did find some TikTik videos "offensive" but they are never boring.