Elon Musk says ‘no one wants’ top Twitter job which is ‘in the fast lane to bankruptcy’, but some volunteer for the position
- About 58 per cent of Twitter users said Musk should step down following a poll on whether he should lead the social media company
- While the Financial Times suggested former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg could be a contender, Musk can also tap talent from Tesla and SpaceX
Elon Musk said there is no one willing and capable of running Twitter. But if he is good to his word and walks away from the top leadership position at the social media company he bought two months ago, a number of people are already raising their hands.
Musk polled his following on Sunday night asking if he should step down, and the answer early on Monday morning by about 58 per cent of respondents was yes.
The mercurial entrepreneur has been almost single-handedly running Twitter since he bought the company in October, having fired or accepted resignations from almost all of the top-rank executives in the past months. Musk said early on that he did not plan to stay on permanently as CEO and he has surrounded himself with a few trusted people, some of whom have suggested they would be ready to take on what he calls a thankless task.
“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted, adding “and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May.”
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Twitter users vote for Elon Musk to step down as platform’s CEO
In the early days of Musk’s takeover of Twitter, he created a War Room, or fix-it committee, to revamp Twitter that included Jason Calacanis, an investor and podcaster, and former PayPal Holdings executive David Sacks. Another Musk loyalist who has been present since the early days is Andreessen Horowitz partner Sriram Krishnan, also a former Twitter executive.
Calacanis ran his own Twitter poll asking whether people thought he or Sacks should run Twitter, or a combination of both of them. Sacks garnered 31 per cent of the vote, with 39 per cent going to “other”. Calacanis did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk did not respond to requests for comment on whether he was following through with honouring the outcome of the poll and who might replace him.