Elon Musk is angling to appoint his successor as Twitter CEO by the end of 2023.
“I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financially healthy place and that the product roadmap is clearly laid out,” Musk said at the World Government Summit in Dubai per CNBC.
“I’m guessing probably towards the end of this year should be good timing to find someone else to run the company because I think it should be in a stable position around the end of this year.”
Musk late last year emphasized he had no interest in staying on as the company’s CEO — going as far as to post a poll about his own reign over the company. Users effortlessly voted him out of the top spot, prompting memes and Musk’s promise to find a replacement.
Musk formally acquired Twitter back in October for a cool $44 billion. The social media platform in April announced it had agreed to sell to the Tesla Tycoon for $54.20 a share, a deal Musk then repeatedly tried to escape. Despite his best efforts to renege, he took over the site late last year and immediately started making moves — but it has not been without backlash.
The same day the deal closed, Musk fired top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, legal chief, Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett. He also removed the company’s board of directors and installed himself as the lone board member. Twitter has laid off approximately half of its 7,500-member workforce since Musk’s takeover.
Most recently, he called for an update to the algorithm on the website. The Tesla tycoon reportedly pressed engineers at Twitter to modify the social network’s algorithm this weekend, after his Super Bowl tweet floundered in comparison to President Joe Biden’s.
Biden’s post generated nearly 29 million impressions compared with Musk’s 9.1 million before he deleted his tweet altogether.
