Elon Musk: ‘I will step down as CEO’ of Twitter

Elon Musk respects the Twitter users’ decree, apparently. Musk tweeted on Tuesday that he would step down as the head of Twitter once he finds a suitable replacement. It follows a poll from Tesla CEO and Twitter owner posted sunday in which he asked users if he should step down as head of Twitter. More than 57% voted in favor of Musk’s resignation.

“I will step down as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk tweeted tuesday. “After that, I’ll just lead the software and server teams.”

I will step down as CEO as soon as I find someone stupid enough to take the job! After that, I will just lead the software and server teams.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022

More than 17.5 million people voted in Musk’s poll. Twitter as a whole had around 238 million daily users at the end of June.

The billionaire, who also heads carmaker Tesla and rocket maker Space X, has a habit of reversing decisions soon after announcing or implementing them.

The abrupt resignation from the embattled social network comes nearly two months after Musk took over. Under his leadership, Twitter faced mass layoffs, lawsuits from former employees, lower advertiser spending, abrupt policy changes and international outrage after it suspended journalists and others. leading users. Before Musk closed the deal to buy Twitter in October, he planned to be CEO only a few months before handing over.

Musk’s time at the helm of Twitter has so far been punctuated with political news that is drawing a backlash among users of the platforms and advertisers. In October, Twitter briefly launched a feature that allowed users to pay $8 for “blue check” verification. It was soon exploited by trolls, who created accounts posing as companies like Nintendo and Coke. In perhaps the most famous example, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co. saw its shares plummet after a fake account tweeted “We are delighted to announce that insulin is now free”.

Musk followed this up last week by suspend journalists’ accounts publications that had critically covered his leadership, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN. Twitter also suspended more than two dozen accounts on the site that used publicly available flight information to track the location of private jets. Musk accused the account of providing “assassination coordinates” by tracking the movements of his private jet and linked it to an alleged harassment incident that occurred in Los Angeles. The Washington Post reported Sunday that police have not determined a connection.

Following a series of dramatic political changes, for which Musk appeared to apologize on Sunday, he promised there would be a vote for all major changes go forward.