By Barbara Ortutay and Matt O’Brien | Related Press
Elon Musk mentioned Thursday he has discovered a brand new CEO for Twitter, or X Corp. because it’s now known as — and it’s a girl. He didn't identify her however mentioned she might be beginning in about six weeks.
Musk, who purchased Twitter final fall and has been operating it since, has lengthy insisted he's not the corporate’s everlasting CEO. The Tesla billionaire mentioned in a tweet Thursday that his position will transition to being Twitter’s government chairman and chief know-how officer.
In mid-November, just some weeks after shopping for the social media platform for $44 billion, he advised a Delaware courtroom that he doesn't wish to be the CEO of any firm.
Whereas testifying, Musk mentioned “I count on to scale back my time at Twitter and discover someone else to run Twitter over time.”
Greater than a month later, he tweeted in December: “I'll resign as CEO as quickly as I discover somebody silly sufficient to take the job.” The pledge got here after thousands and thousands of Twitter customers requested him to step down in a Twitter ballot the billionaire himself created and promised to abide by.
In February, he advised a convention he anticipated discovering a CEO for San Francisco-based Twitter “most likely towards the tip of this yr.”
Shares of Tesla rose about 2% Thursday after Musk made the announcement. Shareholders of the electrical automobile firm have been involved about how a lot of his consideration is being spent on Twitter.
Final November, he was questioned in courtroom about how he splits his time amongst Tesla and his different corporations, together with SpaceX and Twitter. Musk needed to testify within the trial in Delaware’s Courtroom of Chancery over a shareholder’s problem to his doubtlessly $55 billion compensation plan as CEO of the electrical automobile firm.
Musk mentioned he by no means supposed to be CEO of Tesla, and that he didn’t wish to be chief government of some other corporations both, preferring to see himself as an engineer. Musk additionally mentioned on the time that he anticipated an organizational restructuring of Twitter to be accomplished within the subsequent week or so. It’s been almost six months since he mentioned that.
Musk’s tenure at Twitter’s helm has been chaotic, and he’s made numerous guarantees and proclamations he’s backtracked or by no means adopted up on. He started his first day firing the corporate’s prime executives, adopted by roughly 80% of its workers. He’s upended the platform’s verification system and has scaled again content material moderation and safeguards in opposition to the unfold of misinformation.
Bantering with Twitter followers late final yr, Musk expressed pessimism concerning the prospects for a brand new CEO, saying that particular person “should like ache quite a bit” to run an organization that “has been within the quick lane to chapter.”
“Nobody needs the job who can really preserve Twitter alive. There isn't any successor,” Musk tweeted on the time.