According to his own statement, the billionaire wants to give up his position as head of Twitter again.
(Photo: mauritius images (M))
New York, San Francisco Elon Musk resigns as head of short message service Twitter. The billionaire and Tesla boss announced this in a tweet on Thursday afternoon (local time).
“I am pleased to announce that I have hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. It will start in ~6 weeks,” Musk wrote. X Corp is the new name of the Nevada Twitter holding company Musk set up in April.
In the future, he will limit himself to the role of Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, Musk said, and take care of the product, software and hardware systems.
After months of back and forth, Musk took over Twitter at the end of October for $44 billion, fired the previous management team, cut thousands of employees and announced far-reaching restructuring work. On Tuesday, the controversial right-wing presenter Tucker Carlson said he would continue his show on Twitter after being fired by Fox television.
Musk had already announced at the end of last year that he wanted to name a successor who would take over the day-to-day business of the social media platform. In a December poll he launched on Twitter, a majority of respondents supported his resignation as CEO.
Musk tweeted that he would step down if he found someone “dumb enough” to take over. Then, in February, Musk stated that the likely timing for the appointment of a new CEO would be towards the end of the year.
As introduced by Musk, the Twitter press office responded to a Handelsblatt inquiry about the process with an automatically generated message including a “poop emoji”.
It is currently unknown who will succeed Musk as CEO. Musk’s message suggests it could be a female executive. Musk’s space company, SpaceX, which has so far garnered relatively few negative headlines, is effectively led by a woman, Gwynne Shotwell. But even there, Musk’s influence on day-to-day business is high.
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The many discussions surrounding Musk’s Twitter takeover had noticeably damaged the billionaire’s reputation in recent months. Shareholders of his electric car manufacturer Tesla complained that Musk was distracted with controlling Twitter and neglected important issues. Politicians announced a review of politically extreme news on the platform. Musk calls himself an “free speech absolutist.”
Elon Musk visits Twitter headquarters and brings sinks with him
Numerous layoffs
Since Musk’s takeover, around 5,000 of Twitter’s once 7,500 employees have left, most involuntarily. Musk had declared that he would focus on Twitter’s technology and, among other things, dissolved an advisory committee on preventing hate speech. Many of his decisions surprised the users and caused chaos, some Musk had to take back within a very short time.
The biggest problem: Musk, who is fundamentally against an advertising-financed revenue model, scared off numerous advertisers – the most important source of income. In December, he warned that Twitter was on track to post $3 billion in negative cash flow.
Musk’s previous core company, the listed electric car manufacturer Tesla, is also suffering from the zigzag course on Twitter. Musk also acts as CEO here, but withdrew numerous employees, for example from the important Autopilot project, to help out on Twitter. He also had to sell Tesla stock to fund the Twitter acquisition. In December, he sold $3.58 billion worth of stock.
Twitter has been in the red for the past ten years. Musk had taken out a $13 billion loan for the acquisition. The cost of servicing the debt alone is said to amount to a billion dollars.
Tesla shareholders reacted with relief to the announcement on Thursday. Shares jumped more than 2 percent after Musk’s tweet.
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