Elon Musk declared on Thursday that he has found a new CEO for Twitter, or X Corp. as it is now known and that he will soon take over as the social media platform’s chief technical officer.
“Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!,” Musk said in a tweet.
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, who stated in November that he expected reducing back on his time at Twitter and eventually find a new CEO to lead the social media company, has not previously named any prospective candidates.
The billionaire stated he would shift to the position of executive chair and CTO, where he would be in charge of the oversee product, software & sysops.
This move allayed some investor concerns about the amount of time Musk had devoted to turning around Twitter, and Tesla Inc.’s shares ended the day 2.1% higher. Musk also runs the rocket firm SpaceX.
“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, an analyst at Roth MKM, said.
A poll on Twitter that Musk conducted in December received 57.5% of the vote for him to leave his position as the CEO of the social media site.
The initial two weeks of the billionaire’s ownership of Twitter in October were marked by fast change. The previous CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, and other senior executives were quickly dismissed and in November, he laid off half of the company’s workers.
Musk, a self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist has said he took over Twitter to prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber for hate and division.
In his argument with Twitter’s board over his back-and-forth on the $44 billion takeover of the firm, he also pledged to “defeat” spam bots on Twitter.
In the past, Musk has shown some skepticism about the CEO position, writing in December that he would step down “as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!”.
The remarks were made after he hosted a poll on Twitter asking users if they thought he should step down from the top post. Nearly 58% of respondents indicated he should do so.
Tesla’s investors, of which Musk is the CEO, have urged him to take a break from Twitter. The value of the electric car maker’s stock dropped by $700 billion last year as a result of the company’s shares. Tesla’s shares have rebounded this year, rising 59%. On Thursday, the automaker’s shares rose 2%.
