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Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk publicly ventured that he may tab someone else to run Twitter before year’s end.
According to reports, Musk told an assembled group at the World Government Summit on Wednesday (Feb. 15) that he is aiming to pick someone to replace him as CEO of Twitter. Musk officially acquired the social media company for $44 billion last October.
“I’m guessing probably towards the end of this year should be good timing to find someone else to run the company,” he said via video, as he was joining the conference from Dubai. Remarking that “it has been a rollercoaster” in terms of his management of Twitter since last fall, Musk expressed a general idea of how he’d go about the change.
“I need to stabilize the organization and make sure it’s in a healthy place and that the product roadmap is clearly laid out…I think it should be in a stable position around the end of this year,” he stated.
The South African-born billionaire first mentioned his desire to hand off the position Dec. 21, saying that he would focus on software and server engineering the moment “someone foolish enough” took over the role.
Musk has remained under constant criticism for his handling of Twitter since his acquisition. Right-wing trolls, neo-Nazis and other controversial figures who have had their accounts suspended for their actions, were reinstated by the Tesla founder.
Others have complained about layoffs of personnel that have been important in terms of platform safety and malfunctions in usage. Last week, a rollout of a feature where users who signed up to Twitter Blue (for $8 a month) could post tweets with 4,000 characters, caused major glitches.
Another issue for Musk is related to his Tesla company. Since buying Twitter, critics have expressed that he has been neglecting the affairs of that company as well as others. The result has seen Tesla shares drop significantly since last October.
