Elon Musk said Wednesday he will step down from his role as Twitter CEO when he finds someone “foolish enough to take the job.”
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The statement came following a recent Twitter poll in which 57% of users voted in favor of the eccentric billionaire leaving his position. Musk promised to abide by the result of the poll.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” Musk said in a tweet.
I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022
Who could replace Elon Musk as Twitter CEO?
Elon Musk took over as CEO in October after paying $44 billion to purchase the social media firm. However, his short reign has been marred by issues of alleged policy inconsistency, abuse of power and “inhumane” sacking of employees.
Musk has fired nearly half of Twitter’s staff since his takeover, and attempted to introduce a slew of changes to the social networking site, including a paid-for verification feature. The $8 per month feature suffered abuse when it was launched in November.
Twitter immediately suspended the service which was relaunched last week. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is criticized for trying to stifle free speech – an ideal for which he claims to be a champion. He banned journalists who reported about his whereabouts from the platform.
On Sunday, Musk launched a poll asking his 121 million Twitter followers whether he should quit as CEO. Some 57.5% of the 17.5 million users who took part in the poll voted “yes” to Musk leaving his role. At least 42.5% voted “no”.
Elon Musk tweeted after the poll that finding a replacement to takeover as Twitter CEO may be hard.
“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” he lamented, in response to a user’s comment.
No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2022
A few names have popped up as possible replacements for Musk. It includes Facebook’s former COO Sheryl Sandberg, engineer and Musk’s close confidante Sriram Krishnan, and Jared Kushner, U.S. former presidential adviser and son-in-law of Donald Trump, the BBC reported.
Snoop Dogg to the rescue!
Meanwhile, American rapper Snoop Dogg asked his fans whether he should takeover as boss at Twitter. The singer and businessman ran his own poll immediately after Musk’s.
“Should I run Twitter?,” Snoop asked.
Some 3.4 million fans participated and 81% voted in favor of Snoop Dogg replacing Elon Musk as CEO. The remainder voted “no”.
Should I run Twitter ?
— Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) December 19, 2022
It is hard to know whether Snoop Dogg is serious with his ambitions of running a giant social media site such as Twitter. But a fascinating dream nonetheless. Especially for a rapper who has immersed himself with some aspects of cryptocurrency such as NFTs, of which Twitter is a central platform for similar discourse.
Tesla investors disgruntled
Some Tesla investors have argued that Elon Musk may be paying less attention to his role at the electric vehicle maker. They say Musk leaving Twitter would be in the best interests of Tesla, which has seen its share price plunge 65% over the past year.
Musk sold some of his Tesla shares, worth billions of dollars, to help fund the purchase of Twitter. It is something that may have contributed to the decline in the share price of Tesla, according to analysts.
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