Elon Musk said late Tuesday he’ll resign as chief executive of Twitter — eventually.
In a tongue-in-cheek tweet, Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, said: “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 & servers teams.”
Musk posted a Twitter poll on Sunday asking users if he should step down. About 17.5 million Twitter users voted, with 57.5% saying Musk should resign. On Monday, he indicated that polls dealing with company policy should only be open to paying Twitter Blue subscribers, rather than the general user base.
In a November court hearing, Musk said he hoped to find a permanent successor as CEO “over time,” but he said Sunday that there was presently “no successor” and that “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”
His tenure at Twitter has been chaotic, with more than half of the staff eliminated and announcements — often later rescinded — of major policy changes with no advance notice, drawing sharp criticism that his decision-making has been capricious and arbitrary.
The chaos has spread to his other major company, Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
which slumped even further Tuesday. The stock is on pace for its worst month, quarter and year ever, and some shareholders have called for Musk to step down as Tesla CEO, saying his focus on Twitter is hurting the electric-vehicle maker.