Musk says will tweet regardless of business blowback

Elon Musk on May 16 said a new Twitter chief executive will let him devote more time to Tesla, but that he will continue to tweet his unfiltered thoughts even if it hurts his businesses.

"I don't care," the billionaire said during a CNBC interview when asked what he thought of his controversial tweets potentially hurting Tesla shares or making it harder to sell ads on Twitter.

"I'll say what I want to say and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it."

Named as Musk's successor as Twitter CEO, Linda Yaccarino is a respected media and advertising executive considered a visionary by some.

"Twitter is very much an advertising business; Linda is obviously incredible at that and she's just a great executive in general," Musk said.

"Linda will operate a company and I will build products."

Since taking over Twitter in late October, Musk has repeatedly courted controversy, sacking most of its staff, readmitting banned accounts to the platform, suspending journalists and charging for previously free services.

Those moves have spooked advertisers, many of whom left the platform due to concerns over their products being associated with troubling content.

Musk told CNBC he will be focusing especially on artificial intelligence back at Tesla, which already uses such technology for self-driving capabilities.

"I think Tesla will have a ChatGPT moment; I'd say no later than next year," Musk said of Tesla AI used for autonomous driving.