It will be safe to say that Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition hasn't seen smooth sailing. The multi-billionaire has now admitted so himself in an interview with the BBC. What's more, he even regrets buying it now in the first place.

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The Tesla chief admitted he only bought the social media platform because he had to and that running the firm has been "quite painful" and "a rollercoaster."

"The pain level has been extremely high, this hasn't been some kind of party," Twitter's new boss said in a Twitter Spaces interaction with BBC.

Musk, however, did say that though the acquisition has been "really quite stressful", it was the right thing to do.

Admitting Mistakes

Musk admitted in the chat that many mistakes were made along the way but all's well that ends well. “I feel like we're headed to a good place," he said.

When the BBC correspondent asked if Musk would sell Twitter for $44 billion, the amount he bought it for in October 2022, right now, the billionaire refused but clarified that he would if he could be sure that the buyer was as committed to telling the truth as he says he is.

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Musk was also asked about the reason for stepping down as the CEO, to which he responded by saying had and that his dog is now Twitter's CEO and laughed it off.

This was the second instance during the interview that the billionaire mentioned his dog. Earlier he interrupted the BBC correspondent in the middle of questioning to remind him that he's "no longer the CEO of Twitter". When asked who is, Musk named his pet dog Floki, a Shiba Inu.

Following this episode, BBC in its live blog pointed out there was clearly tension between the correspondent and Musk.

The timing of the interview seems interesting as this just days after Musk-owned Twitter labelled the BBC as a "government-funded media" on the microblogging site, leading to a sharp reaction from the British public broadcaster which on April 11 objected to the move.

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In this interview, Musk said he had the “utmost respect” for the organisation and that “We want (the tag) as truthful and accurate as possible – we’re adjusting the label to (the BBC being])publicly funded – we’ll try to be accurate.”

In a statement released in the wake of the “government-funded media” designation, the broadcaster said, “The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee.”

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(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)