After the poll calling for his resignation, Elon Musk has promised that he will step down from the role CEO Of Twitter. But only if”he’ll find someone crazy enough to take” his place, with the billionaire who will remain to manage “i team software e server”. That seems like a way of saying that he will continue to command only him.
Elon Musk will step down as CEO of Twitter, while continuing to run it
“If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change“. Tomasi da Lampedusa wrote this sentence in The Leopard, but he could easily launder it Elon Musk for a tweet. After controversies over sudden policy changes, the banning of journalists and other social media platforms from Twitter, Musk promised that all major decisions on social media would be made after a poll. The first question: Does Twitter want Musk as CEO of the social network?
57.5% of users who voted called for the Twitter owner to resign from the role of CEO. Musk didn’t respond for an entire day, merely sharing a message from a user saying that only those who pay for Twitter Blue should be able to decide in polls. But finally, his answer comes.
In a tweet, posted amid several comments on the US congressional finance approval and a cryptic bot post on social media, Musk commented on his own poll. “I will step down as CEO as soon as I find someone crazy enough to take over! After that, I’ll just manage the software & server teams.”
Will it really change anything?
As you can imagine, i team who manage the Twitter software and the servers on which the data is recorded are the vast majority of personnel of the social. Especially after the mass layoffs, which brought Twitter staff from 7,500 to 2,000 employees, and after eliminating the PR team and reducing the content moderation team.
It therefore seems that Musk is not exactly keen on relinquishing his seat as CEO. He not only told possible candidates that they will accept a “crazy” job, but also chand they will have the owner to manage the heart of all activities for them. The CEO will then be able to manage the marketing team, even if he will hardly be able to tell Musk to stop tweeting. And he will be able to manage contracts with advertisers, who are currently on the run: certainly a complicated job.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei. But up to a point
In the past Musk had readmitted several banned users, including former President Trump, after a poll he won saying “Voice of the people, voice of God”. The Latin term served to divert responsibility: it was not he who readmitted people, but the platform itself.
This time Elon Musk has left Latin aside, accepting the request to resign as CEO of Twitter only in part. He has full rights: no one ensures that a company’s users have the right to choose its CEO, it’s not part of social media policies.
However, this could dissatisfy the users who voted in the poll, but those who seem more annoyed seem to Tesla shareholders. The company’s investors, which has lost 50% of its value in one year, also due to the shares sold by Musk to buy Twitter, they have repeatedly expressed disappointment at this attention to Musk’s Twitter.
Reuters reports that Tesla’s third largest individual investor, KoGuan Leotweeted “Elon has walked out on Tesla and Tesla doesn’t have a CEO at work” and most recently “I hope Elon finds a new Twitter CEO quickly.” Ross Gerberhead of an investment company that has invested in Tesla, explains: “the only problem is the figure of having the CEO of Twitter who discusses Hunter Biden’s problems every day”, son of the current president.
In short, investors seem to want fewer tweets and more initiatives as CEO of Tesla. But it looks like Musk will remain actively involved in Twitter for the foreseeable future. If and when Musk finds a CEO, he will be in charge of charming advertisers and managing relations with politicians to avoid negative publicity. But Chief Twit will remain Elon Musk.