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Elon Musk to relinquish Twitter CEO role by end of 2023
Only a few months after taking over as Twitter’s CEO, Elon Musk is already looking to step down from his current role by the end of 2023. Musk says he intends to relinquish his position but only after he stabilises the company and makes it profitable.
The tech billionaire and SpaceX CEO bought the social media platform in December of last year in a deal worth $44 billion. He said that he was acquiring the microblogging platform because he wants “to help humanity” by creating “a common digital town square.” After acquiring the company, Musk tweeted “the bird is freed” and later said, “let the good times roll”.
Elon Musk has also confirmed in multiple interviews that he wants to convert Twitter into a super app akin to China’s WeChat. The Tesla CEO often creates Twitter polls to ask the internet community to make important decisions for him. For instance, he moved forward with his plans to acquire Twitter after a huge number of people asked him to do that in a Twitter poll. Similarly, Musk conducted another poll on Twitter in December 2021 on whether he should step down as the CEO of Twitter. An overwhelming majority of users voted for him to relinquish his role as CEO and Musk has since replied that he was willing to abide by the poll results and step down as promised.
Elon Musk on his plans for Twitter and the future of the company#Mohammad_AlGergawi#AlGergawi@elonmusk#WGS2023#WorldGovSummit pic.twitter.com/urCgnk8rxy
— World Gov Summit (@WorldGovSummit) February 15, 2023
On Wednesday, Musk spoke at the World Government Summit in Dubai via video link, where he said that he needs to stabilise the company, ensure it is financially healthy and finalise a complete product roadmap before handing over the reins to a new CEO. It is unclear whether Musk will find a replacement before the end of the year but he has stated that he does not want to remain as CEO of any company.
Elon Musk is known to be an extremely hard-working person and often ends up sleeping in his offices. However, he said that he does not want to keep working seven days a week for the rest of his life. On the contrary, Musk believes that he has an engineering role in his companies and he wants to make sure they meet their goals. Ultimately, he wants to reduce his time at Twitter and find someone else to run Twitter over time. He stated that he needs to make sure that the organisation is in a stable position before he hands it over to a new CEO.
شاهدوا البث المباشر لليوم الثالث من القمة العالمية للحكومات 2023#القمة_العالمية_للحكومات
— World Gov Summit (@WorldGovSummit) February 15, 2023
The World Government Summit Day 3 is Now Live#WGS2023#WorldGovSummit https://t.co/pTUolQlDFu
According to reports, Musk said, “I’m guessing probably towards the end of the year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company. I think it should be in a stable position around the end of this year.”
“I frankly don’t want to be the CEO of any company. At SpaceX, it’s really that I’m responsible for the engineering of the rockets and Tesla for the technology in the car that makes it successful,” he said.
“So, CEO is often viewed as somewhat of a business-focused role, but in reality, my role is much more that of an engineer developing technology and making sure that we develop breakthrough technologies and that we have a team of incredible engineers who can achieve those goals,” Musk added.