Elon Musk Stepping Down As Twitter CEO, Replacement Already Decided

Elon Musk said that he will become Twitter’s executive chair and chief technology officer after leaving the company’s top position. A new female CEO will take over the social network in about six weeks, its billionaire owner announced.

When Musk purchased Twitter in October of last year for $44 billion, he made it clear that he would only remain CEO for as long as necessary to implement the structural changes he saw as crucial to the company’s future success. While executing these drastic modifications, Musk complained of having “too much work” and slept at Twitter’s San Francisco offices.

Musk, CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, has been criticized for being too focused on his two most prominent companies. The new CEO will inherit a subscription service strategy that is failing and an exodus of advertisers. Musk has also reduced content filtering and eliminated thousands of positions.

Musk previewed the CEO change with a December poll asking followers if he should “step down as head of Twitter,” promising to abide by the wishes of the crowd.

The vote appeared after Musk implemented a widely criticized policy change that seemingly banned sharing links to other social network sites. Musk later clarified and then rolled back the rule, promising that there would be a vote for major policy changes going forward.

A few minutes later, he tweeted the poll about stepping down, which received around 17.5 million responses, with 57.5 percent indicating that he should no longer be CEO of Twitter

Investors at Tesla, who have been becoming concerned about the time Musk is committing to turning around Twitter, will likely feel relieved by the decision. Shares of Tesla Inc. rose by 2.4% on high trading activity after the announcement.

When Musk was getting started on Twitter, he took on some temporary support from across his many firms, including some old faithful collaborators. There are already women in leadership roles inside his companies, but it’s not apparent whether he intends to promote from within.