Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that he will stand down as CEO of Twitter once a replacement is found.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone stupid enough to accept the position!” “After that, I’ll only run the software and servers teams,” Musk said on Twitter.
This is the first time Musk has acknowledged stepping down as CEO of the social media site since Twitter users overwhelmingly voted for him to stand down in a poll sponsored by the entrepreneur on Sunday evening.
This is not the first time he has stated that he will not be running the company in the long run. In November, the world’s second-richest person told a Delaware court that he would cut his time at Twitter and eventually find someone to run it in his stead.
For weeks, Wall Street has been calling for Musk to stand down, and recently, Tesla investors have questioned if Musk’s obsession with the social networking platform is distracting him from effectively managing the electric vehicle industry.
Musk admitted in court in Delaware that he had too much on his plate. However, he stated on Sunday that there is no replacement and that “no one wants the position who can genuinely keep Twitter running.”
Before Tuesday’s post, Musk’s only comment to the survey was to argue that bogus accounts affected the results. He also said that Twitter would “make that change” in response to a tweet stating that only users who paid US$8 or US$11 (for iOS subscribers) for a Twitter Blue subscription should be able to vote in polls.
The poll demanding Musk’s resignation came after a slew of highly criticized choices by Twitter’s new owner. He initially blocked an account that tracked the location of his private jet, and then he suspended all critical journalists who reported on the ban.
Musk issued a new regulation forbidding all links to other social networks, including Mastodon, Instagram, and Facebook, after users retaliated by announcing plans to leave for other platforms.
The switch was made at the Fifa World Cup final in Qatar, where Musk was seen with former US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. By the end of the day, the policy had been scrapped, with Musk declaring that any important policy changes in the future will be chosen through a vote.