Musk Expects to Cut Time on Twitter and Find Another Leader • The Register

Elon Musk, the disruptor extraordinaire of the social media platform he bought for $44 billion, has no plans to run Twitter on a full-time basis permanently and says a CEO will be hired.

The world’s richest man – who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – made the remarks while testifying yesterday during a lawsuit by shareholders alleging his $56 billion compensation package awarded by the electric car company was too high.

The 2018 lawsuit alleges that Musk’s time and attention is divided among other companies, including SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink (which has its own CEO), and now Twitter.

“After the acquisition, an initial burst of activity is required to reorganize the company,” Musk said. “I expect to cut back on my time on Twitter and find someone to run Twitter over time.”

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and former CEO of the company, immediately ruled himself out. He was asked by another user on Twitter if he would accept the position and answered “Nope”.

Twitter may not be the only CEO Musk is willing to vacate. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tesla board member James Murdoch said during the shareholder lawsuit yesterday that Musk had previously identified a possible successor at Tesla but did not name that potential successor.

Musk had commented at Tesla’s annual meeting in August that he planned to remain at the helm of the electric-car maker for as long as he could prove useful.

Running multiple companies seems fine for tech brothers, but a part-time job is sometimes frowned upon by the C-suite, as demonstrated recently when a boss fired several engineers for undeclared work.

Twitter has taken up a lot of Musk’s time, especially since the deal closed two weeks ago, and he expects the major restructuring work to be completed this week. It was a period of massive upheaval for the social media platform’s workforce.

Musk announced his arrival by showing up at Twitter headquarters with a kitchen sink, then fired the CEO, CFO and general counsel and about half the workforce amid Twitter’s $4 million daily losses.

Musk snubbed some software developers this week after claiming to know the cause of slower Twitter performance in a number of countries. One, Eric Frohnhoefer, publicly disagreed and was subsequently fired. Others followed him out the door.

Musk mocked her, saying: “I want to apologize for firing these geniuses. Her immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.”

In another example of the man’s motivational techniques, his Muskness days ago issued an ultimatum, telling employees that in order to achieve his vision for Twitter 2.0, they would have to burn the midnight oil.

“This means working long hours at high intensity,” he said. “Only exceptional performance establishes a passing grade.” Those willing to sign the pledge have until 5:00 p.m. ET today or are free to leave.

Those remaining at Twitter could be forgiven for hoping that a change in leadership, if not a change in ownership, will come sooner rather than later. ®