Elon Musk is Looking For New Twitter CEO “Foolish Enough to Take the Job”
Twitter CEO Elon Musk said that he’s ready to resign as soon he finds “someone foolish enough to take the job.” The exec announced the news two days after he made a poll asking Twitter users if he should step down as the CEO of Twitter. 57.5% of the over 17 million voters had responded “Yes.”
Elon Musk said that if he resigns, he will still be running Twitter’s software and server teams, which means he would still keep a lot of power within the company.
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
Since Musk acquired Twitter in late October, he made some pretty drastic changes to how the company operates. First of all, he laid off over half of the company’s workforce and then required those who remained to deliver “exceptional performance” or leave. The company also ended its work-from-home policy in November.
As Twitter saw its ad revenue decline significantly over the past couple of weeks, Elon Musk’s first big project has been to relaunch the Twitter Blue subscription, with a goal of making Twitter make 50% of its revenue from subscriptions. However, the rollout of the new Twitter Blue had to be paused once the company realized that many subscribers were using their paid blue checkmark to impersonate other people or brands.
In recent weeks, Elon Musk has also been using Twitter polls to help him decide what to do. Last week, after suspending the accounts of several high-profile journalists accused of revealing Musk’s location, a Twitter poll eventually made the Twitter CEO change his mind. However, Musk recently suggested that only paid Twitter Blue subscribers should be able to vote in these polls.
Good point. Twitter will make that change.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2022
Obviously, Musk’s management style is very unusual, many would even say inappropriate. And his actions have already caused the company to be hit by dozens of legal complaints from ex-employees accusing Twitter of sex discrimination, illegal termination of their work contracts, and failure to pay promised severance pay.
Despite all the drama caused by Elon Musk since he acquired the company, Musk regularly tweets that usage of Twitter has been increasing. Yesterday, the company emphasized that conversation impressions during the FIFA World Cup more than doubled the number of impressions of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Still, more and more Twitter users seem ready to explore other platforms. Mastodon, the decentralized social media platform that is often recognized as one of the most credible Twitter alternatives has gained 2.2 million monthly active users between October and November.