Elon Musk says he’ll resign as Twitter’s CEO once he finds “someone foolish enough” to take over the job.
Musk made the statement two days after he held a poll on Twitter, asking users whether he should step down as CEO during a tenure that’s been full of controversial changes.
The resulting poll found that 57.5% of the 17.5 million respondents had voted yes, and that Musk should no longer lead Twitter. Musk said he would abide by the results of the poll. But after more than a day of silence on the poll’s results, Musk on Tuesday finally tweeted: “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 and servers teams.”
However, the tweet also means Musk will be sticking around as CEO, at least for a while, despite saying he'd abide to the results of the poll.
Musk has said all along he never planned on leading Twitter as CEO permanently. A month ago, he reportedly told a judge that he plans to reduce his time at Twitter, and eventually find someone else to run the company. Back in May, CNBC also reported that Musk planned to serve as Twitter’s CEO temporarily for a few months.
So to a large extent, nothing has changed. Musk remains in the driver's seat for Twitter until he's ready to depart. In addition, Musk mentioned he'll "run the software and servers teams" after the new CEO comes on board, meaning he'll still possess a major influence over the platform's direction.
Who he wants to hire to replace him remains unclear. But Musk's tweet on Tuesday signals he may be facing a hard time finding a candidate when Twitter is facing a potential bankruptcy, along with an exodus of some users and advertisers.