Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Alan Sugar ‘quite happy’ to continue using Twitter, but has no plans to buy it

Lord Sugar in the boardroom of Amshold House in Loughton, Essex (Ian West/PA)
Lord Sugar in the boardroom of Amshold House in Loughton, Essex (Ian West/PA)

Lord Alan Sugar has said he remains “quite happy” to use Twitter, but has no desire to own the social media site.

The businessman, who stars in the 17th series of BBC reality show The Apprentice, said he had left that to Elon Musk “who has spent a few pennies on buying it”.

Lord Sugar, 75, has more than 5.2 million followers on the platform – which was purchased by Mr Musk in October, and regularly posts about the long-running programme and his various companies.

The Apprentice 2023
The Apprentice 2023 contestants (Ray Burmiston/BBC/PA)

He told the PA news agency: “I’m quite happy to use it, but I don’t want to own it. I’ve left that to Mr Musk who has spent a few pennies on buying it.

“I use Twitter as my message board, my right of reply if you like, to the media.

“I see myself as being able to talk about what I want to talk about, and on many occasions be able to reply to nonsense that comes either from the media or from other people.

“I use it as a very useful tool. (It’s been) fantastic, not only for me, but for my candidates, my winners. Of course, their exposure on social media gets much bigger once they join the show.”

Lord Sugar said he had no interest in “non-touchy feely” website-based businesses such as Spotify, Google or dating apps.

He said: “I’m a businessman, I’m looking for a good business to invest in, things that have changed dramatically over the years are these kind of non-touchy feely products, businesses – things I’m not interested in.

“I’d prefer people to make something or provide a service of some kind, we’ve got the options for that here.

“I personally, I’m interested in something new, another business that I haven’t been in. It’s also like starting from scratch for me.”

Lord Sugar later clarified what he meant by non-touchy feely businesses.

“People with websites that are going to do this and that…I’m not interested in all those, Spotifys and Googles and all this type of stuff,” he said.

“This is the new wave of young people that think they’ve come up with some new website for dating or whatever. I’m not interested in that stuff really. Let someone else get on with that.”

The Apprentice 2023
Lord Sugar in the boardroom of Amshold House in Loughton, Essex (Ian West/PA)

The Apprentice has whittled down 18 candidates to the final two competing to win a life-changing investment of £250,000 from Lord Sugar.

The final on March 23 on BBC One at 9pm will see boxing gym owner Marnie Swindells and hair guru Rochelle Anthony go head-to-head to win the investment for their respective businesses.

Lord Sugar said: “They are two worthy finalists, there’s no question of that. I always say the cream comes to the top and they worked very, very well through the course of the 12 weeks.

“They deserve to be where they are. I have a dilemma on deciding eventually, which one I’m going to choose as the winner.

“(Over the years) it’s actually got a bit harder because the quality of the candidates are getting better and there’s so much good talent in there among the others.

“I won’t say all 18 were contenders, but certainly five or six of them were contenders.”

He added that the series on a whole “went very smoothly”.

The Apprentice final air on March 23 at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.