Musk Will Step Down from Twitter Once He Finds ’Someone Foolish Enough to Take the Job’

By Staff, Agencies

Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced late Tuesday that he would resign from his post but that it would only happen once he officially finds "someone foolish enough to take the job."

The tech billionaire has touched on stepping down from the CEO post, previously indicating that the workload required of the job was weighing on him. However, he has yet to indicate who would fill the position following his departure.

"After that, I will just run the software & servers’ teams," he noted in a Twitter post, which came two days after he published a poll asking netizens whether he should part ways with the role.

The Tuesday announcement is the first time Musk has touched on him potentially stepping down since his weekend poll. Potential candidates have not been detailed; in fact, Musk earlier stated that he had no successor and was unaware of a qualified individual.

"No one who wants the job can actually keep Twitter alive," he said in a Sunday post.

The Sunday poll saw users overwhelmingly vote in favor for him to hit the road, with 57.5% of respondents voting "yes." Just 42.5% of netizens said they wanted the billionaire to continue manning the platform as CEO.

The entrepreneur has previously stated he would be willing to step down, lamenting he has far too much on his plate at the moment. Musk also heads SpaceX and automotive company Tesla, which recently saw its stock plummet.

Musk has only served as Twitter chief for about two months after officially purchasing the social media giant in late October in a $44 billion agreement, of which only came after a months-long court battle.

Shortly after Musk's acquisition, about half of the staff was axed as many opted to submit their pink slips not long after being informed of Twitter's new "extremely hardcore" work environment that was not friendly to remote work.

Drama at Twitter HQ under Musk's reign has also been prompted by a paid verification system that led to widespread account spoofing, loss of advertisers and allowing the return of users who had been previously been booted off the platform for misinformation and hate speech, among other issues.

However, more recently, the South African native went toe-to-toe with journalists, opting to suspend multiple individuals who had reportedly shared private information that Musk described as "basically assassination coordinates." Many of the affected accounts have since been reinstated.

The ban itself came as Musk has portrayed himself as a free speech warrior, even going so far as allowing the publication of the "Twitter Files" series, which has so far delved into the platform's ties to government monitoring. The latest batch in the series touched on how the platform "directly assisted" with the US military's influence operations.