Elon Musk has confirmed he will follow the wishes of Twitter Inc users and step down as chief executive.
Following a period of relative quietness, Musk tweeted on Wednesday morning that he would step down when he finds “someone foolish enough to take the role”.
He added that he would continue to run the platform’s software and server teams after stepping down, with speculation that he might take up the role of chairman or other board position to retain effective control.
Around 17.5mln people voted in his poll asking if he should step down, with 57.5% of respondents agreeing he should.
Cynics suggested the poll was a way for Musk to identify bot traffic on the social media site, but his decision to hand over the CEO reins might suggest otherwise.
Musk’s stint as the ‘chief twit,’ as he previously called it, has been making headlines ever since he took the job following his US$44bn purchase in October.
Having previously bragged about Twitter’s user numbers and lower hate speech figures, sentiment seems to have shifted, with Musk now more negative in his tweets.
Bookmaker William Hill placed the odds of Musk selling Twitter next year at two to one.
Antoine Argouges, chief executive at activist investor Tulipshare, argued Musk’s public vote had “undermined his reputation and credibility with shareholders” at Tesla, where he is also chief executive and where most of his wealth lies.
Appointing a new Twitter chief executive may take some time according to Musk, now only the world’s second richest man after a slump in the Tesla share price, who said that “no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive,” earlier this week.
“There is no successor,” he added.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1001845/elon-musk-confirms-exit-as-twitter-ceo-after-user-vote-1001845.html
