Musk Says to Step Down as Twitter CEO After Successor Found

Elon Musk

Elon Musk has announced he will step down as Twitter’s chief executive after finding a replacement.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk said in a tweet late on Tuesday. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”

Musk’s announcement comes after Twitter users voted for him to step down in a poll created by the platform’s billionaire owner.

More than 17.5 million votes were cast in the Twitter poll, with 57.5 percent in favour of Musk stepping down. Musk conducted his poll after Twitter’s announcement that it would no longer allow the “free promotion” of other social media platforms sparked a backlash among users.

Musk, who purchased Twitter in October for $44bn, has courted controversy with his decisions since taking control of the influential social media platform.

Last week, Musk, who also runs Tesla and several other startups, temporarily banned more than half a dozen journalists after accusing the media of putting his family in danger by publicising the location of his private jet.

Musk made the claim after changing the site’s ‘doxxing’ rules to ban accounts that track private aircraft.

Flight tracking data collected by the United States Federal Aviation Administration is public information and shared online by private websites such as FlightAware and Flightradar24.

Musk had earlier appeared to dismiss a report that he was looking for someone to take over this role by tweeting a laughing emoji and claiming that no one wanted the job of keeping Twitter alive.

Since Musk took charge of the social media giant, Tesla’s share price has fallen by one-third, prompting speculation that the billionaire has come under pressure to step back from the social media platform.

Dan Ives, a technology analyst at Wedbush Securities, welcomed Musk’s announcement.

“Finally a good step in the right direction to end this painful nightmare situation for Tesla investors,” Ives wrote on Twitter.

(Al Jazeera)