Musk Says He Will Step Down From Twitter—With a Big Caveat
The billionaire said he was prepared to resign as CEO. Whether he really will is another question.
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty
Elon Musk finally announced Tuesday night that he will resign as CEO of Twitter—after users voted him out on his own poll over the weekend.
However, the declaration came with a big caveat: “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!”
Musk tweeted that once he steps down, “I will just run the software & servers teams.”
I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022
The announcement is the latest in a mind-boggling wave of decisions by the SpaceX and Tesla boss, who bought Twitter in a $44 billion deal—and immediately plunged it into chaos.
The bedlam has been fueled by his reliance on Twitter polls—starting with whether ex-President Donald Trump’s account should be restored.
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Musk has portrayed the polls as an exercise in democracy but critics say they are a fig leaf for controversial decisions and a face-saving method to reverse mistakes.
After the billionaire was pilloried for suspending journalists who dared to post about his nemesis @elonjet—run by a college student who tracks his private jet—and for a new policy banning users from linking to other social media sites, he launched the poll asking whether he should step down.
The result: 57 percent said yes.
Musk did not comment on the outcome for an entire day—although he did endorse a user’s suggestion that only those who pay $11 a month to be verified should be allowed to vote.
Then on Tuesday night came his tweet that he would, in fact, step down if he could find a successor. Those following closely might recall that on Monday, Musk tweeted in a reply to someone that it would be impossible to find a successor.
So whether Musk will actually remove himself as CEO and step back from decisions that don’t involve coding is anyone’s guess. And even if he relinquish the title, he still owns the platform.
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