Mr. Musk, who asked his Twitter followers on Sunday if he should step down as CEO, will continue to own the company.
Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that he will quit as Twitter’s CEO when he found “someone foolish enough to take the job,” two days after he asked his 122 million Twitter followers if he should resign as the social media site’s head and the majority of answers responded yes.
Mr. Musk, who purchased Twitter for $44 billion in late October, posed this question to his followers on Sunday evening after receiving outrage for controversial new content moderation procedures and the seemingly arbitrary banning and reinstating of prominent users. Even formerly loyal supporters blasted his behavior, calling his platform antics “the last straw.”
The poll received 17.5 million votes. Mr. Musk stated that he would accept the outcome, and more than 57 percent of respondents agreed that he should resign.
Monday morning, hours after the election closed, Mr. Musk remained mute. Monday night, when he finally spoke, he did not explicitly address the survey result. Instead, he responded to Twitter users who expressed skepticism about the outcome by stating that Twitter would modify its poll feature so that only subscribers could vote.
Then, on Tuesday night, Mr. Musk tweeted that he would quit as CEO after selecting a replacement. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” he said.
Mr. Musk has based Twitter’s content control choices on previous “polls.” However, he has also made unfulfilled promises and predictions at his firms.
It’s not clear what the point of stepping down as CEO would be. The billionaire bought Twitter and made it private. He will still own it. On Sunday, he tweeted that he had no one to take over for him and that he didn’t think anyone was qualified to run Twitter.
“No one who wants the job can actually keep Twitter alive,” he posted.
When Mr. Musk bought Twitter on October 27, he fired its top executives right away. Since then, other high-level leaders have been fired or quit, leaving the executive suite empty.
At his other companies, such as Tesla, which makes electric cars, and SpaceX, which makes rockets, Mr. Musk has sometimes picked a key adviser to run the business while he is away. At SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operating officer, has been given the job.
Mr. Musk had decided to run Twitter by himself. He has asked employees from Tesla and the Boring Company, a tunneling startup, to join him. Steve Davis, who is the president of the Boring Company, has led a number of projects at Twitter to cut costs. Mr. Musk has had investors like Antonio Gracias, who used to be on the board of Tesla, and his personal lawyer, Alex Spiro, give him advice on legal and financial matters.
Mr. Musk has also depended on Tesla and SpaceX personnel to handle technical concerns, as Twitter’s engineering ranks have been decimated by layoffs and resignations. Musk has continued to employ Tesla employees, including Sheen Austin, a Tesla engineer who has been leading Twitter’s infrastructure organization. At least one Tesla board member has stated that he believes Tesla’s employees will only be temporarily employed by Twitter.
Some of Mr. Musk’s advisors have advocated for leadership positions at Twitter. Jason Calacanis, an investor in Mr. Musk’s Twitter, asked his own followers on the platform on Sunday whether he or the venture capitalist David Sacks should be Twitter’s chief executive, or split the post.
Mr. Musk, who was in Qatar this weekend with Jared Kushner for the World Cup final, is also seeking additional investment in Twitter. His finance staff, directed by Jared Birchall, the head of his family office, sent letters to possible investors after he sold $3.6 billion worth of Tesla shares last week, according to a source who was solicited to invest but was not permitted to talk publicly.
The emails to possible investors encouraged them to invest at the $54.20 per share price that Mr. Musk paid to acquire the company, according to the source. However, Mr. Musk has since stated publicly that the sum he paid for Twitter was more than double its value.
Mr. Musk has continued to aggressively reduce Twitter’s expenses. According to four people familiar with the activities and documents obtained by The New York Times, the business initiated another round of layoffs on Friday evening. People reported that approximately 50 employees, primarily from the company’s infrastructure sector, were let go. How other divisions were affected was unclear.
“After further review of our work force, we have identified roles within our organizational structure which are no longer necessary,” a Twitter email, which was shared with The Times, said.
Twitter, which had approximately 7,500 people when Mr. Musk assumed control, has lost approximately 70 percent of its workforce through layoffs, firings, and resignations. The Information already revealed the latest batch of layoffs.
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