In an interview with Campaign Asia-Pacific, Ecclestone admitted his lack of knowledge of social media, and indicated that he was not interested in appealing to a teenage demographic.
"I'm not interested in tweeting, Facebook and whatever this nonsense is," said the 84-year-old. "I tried to find out but in any case I'm too old-fashioned. I couldn't see any value in it. And I don't know what the so-called 'young generation' of today really wants."
He added: "I don't know why people want to get to the so-called 'young generation'. Why do they want to do that? Is it to sell them something?
"Most of these kids haven't got any money. I'd rather get to the 70-year-old guy who's got plenty of cash."
That was far from his only controversial statement: he expressed sympathy for Oscar Pistorius, calling him "this poor guy", and also pointed the finger at female F1 fans, who he said were the most likely to express disapproval of the sport.
"What's popular one year isn't the next," he said. "Now there's not as much noise from these cars as there used to be, so people are complaining. The good old days were actually the best. But that's how people are. Women in particular like to criticise."
In a bewildering parallel, he likened the financial problems of the smaller F1 teams to "ladies and credit cards", advising them: "Just don't spend as much. These teams don't need to be in financial trouble. They need to think about what they have got to spend and do the best they can with that."
Ecclestone has already been scathing about the difficulties faced by Caterham and Marussia, saying: "If people can’t afford to be in Formula One, they have to find something else to do."
The F1 supremo touched on many other aspects of his career in the interview, and actually played down his own abilities as he did so.
"Unlike most successful business people who tend to think they're geniuses, I think most of us are just lucky and happen to be in the right place at the right time. I grasped the opportunities that were in front of me, whereas a lot of people don't...
"I never thought about being global. It just happened. Things fell into place."


