Twitter CEO Elon Musk said Thursday that the social media company has got a new CEO that will start running it in about six weeks.
He said that he will move to a product and technical role and would transition “to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”
Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!
My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023
Musk started searching for who will take the CEO role late last year, not long after he purchased Twitter. In a Twitter poll he conducted in December asking users if they would like him to continue running the platform, 57.5% of responders voted for him to step down as CEO of the social media platform.
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“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk had said then.
The entrepreneur, who is also the CEO of other companies such as electric vehicle maker Tesla and reusable rocket maker SpaceX, has come under severe criticism over how he was handling the social media platform.
Musk also came under intense pressure from Tesla shareholders who said his focus on Twitter was heavily impacting the electric vehicle company.
Tesla shares slumped as much 65% in 2022 as Musk concentrated on revamping Twitter, selling his Tesla shares to fund the social media company’s acquisition.
In April, a host of progressive Tesla shareholders publicly urged Tesla’s board to ensure that Musk would dedicate more time to the automobile company.
Tesla shares jumped more than 2% at the news that Twitter is getting a new CEO.
“The boat anchor called Twitter is loosened from Musk’s ankle. Now he can get back to spending more time creating value at Tesla,” Craig Irwin, analyst at Roth MKM, said.
Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter takeover and has been fighting to make the platform profitable with newly-introduced changes, which includes the monetization of verification. He also laid off more than half of Twitter’s workforce in a cost-cutting move he initiated last year.
Though Musk said that Twitter has significantly overcome its financial woes, the company’s bad days are not yet over. Twitter makes more than 90% of its revenue from ads, but has witnessed mass exodus of advertisers owing to the many changes introduced by Musk which did not augur well with many companies.
Musk is also planning to create a super app dubbed X, which will put many of its businesses, including Twitter, together. Last month, it was revealed that the social media company is partnering with eToro – a social trading company, as Musk continues to explore other ways to generate revenue. The partnership is expected to deepen Twitter’s push to offer financial services.