Any working parent can tell you that establishing limits on your child’s screen time is a challenge. And Elon Musk says he struggles with it as much as anyone.
The Twitter enthusiast and owner, speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, said he does not have any rules restricting his children’s time on social media. However, he added, that “might have been a mistake.”
Musk noted that algorithms social media companies use might be detrimental to children, noting that his own had “really been programmed by Reddit and YouTube, I'd say.”
Musk is the father of nine children: two with musician Grimes, five with ex-wife Justine Wilson, and twins with Shivon Zilis, project director at his Neuralink brain chip company. (A 10th child, with Wilson, died at 10 weeks of age.)
Musk is the owner of a social media company himself, and Twitter’s own algorithm has been changing regularly since his takeover of the company. Most recently, he reportedly ordered Twitter engineers to boost the visibility of his own tweets to users after a Super Bowl post from President Joe Biden saw more engagement.
Still, he said, he would rethink the exposure of his own kids to social media, and encouraged other parents to do so as well.
“I think, probably, I would limit social media a bit more than I have in the past and just take note of what they’re watching, because I think at this point they’re being programmed by some social media algorithms, which you may or may not agree with,” he said. “So, I think one needs to supervise one’s children’s views of social media and be wary of them being programmed by some algorithm.”
