Twitter CEO and billionaire Elon Musk is apparently looking for a successor.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone stupid enough to take the job!” Musk tweeted on Dec. 20. “After that, I’ll just run the software and servers teams.”
I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022
Less than two months after buying the social media site for $44 billion, Musk posted a poll on Dec. 18 asking people if he should step down as CEO of Twitter. About 58 percent chose yes.
Musk’s impulsive and seemingly contradictory decision-making has drawn criticism from lawmakers, industry executives, advocacy groups, and other stakeholders, making it difficult to convince anyone to take over Twitter.
Twitter botched the launch of its $8-a-month subscription service, Twitter Blue, by giving blue checkmarks to users who later impersonated well-known firms.
The new CEO will have to collaborate with Elon Musk. The world’s second-richest man said he wanted his employees to be more “hard-core”. Any next CEO would likely be expected to do the same by Musk.
Twitter’s new CEO will also have to manage all the issues that come with leading a social network that is going through financial difficulties. Musk took over Twitter at a time when it was barely profitable, and because of his misguided leadership and divisive views, many well-known advertisers have left.
Half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees were let go during the company’s short tenure, and it later used aggressive tactics such as “code reviews” and loyalty demands to fire more workers. This raised concerns about whether Twitter had access to enough talent to sustain the business.
According to experts at the leading tech website JEE News, here are the people who may be out of a job:
Someone from Musk’s inner circle
Some members of Musk’s inner circle have previously expressed interest in leading Twitter.
Jason Kalakanis, a businessman and angel investor who is a friend of Elon Musk, also texted the billionaire saying that running Twitter was his “dream job.” Kalakanis texted Musk, “Board member, advisor, whatever… you have my sword,” according to texts made public during Twitter’s legal battle with the entrepreneur.
David Sachs, a member of Musk’s inner circle and a partner at Kraft Ventures and a former PayPal executive, was suggested as a candidate in a poll. Buries got about 31 percent of the vote.
Another trusted Musk supporter and Boring Company CEO Steve Davis reportedly moved his newborn to sleep in Twitter’s corporate offices while he helped the billionaire. Davis, whose background is in aerospace engineering, used to work at SpaceX, so he’s already familiar with the “rigorous” work ethic favored by the billionaire.
Jack Dorsey.
The co-founder and former CEO of Twitter has a history of leaving and later returning to lead the business.
The only problem is that Dorsey isn’t ready to take over as CEO again. He responded to a Twitter user who predicted Musk would ask Dorsey to take over as CEO of Twitter in May.
nah I'll never be CEO again
— jack (@jack) May 11, 2022
John Legere
Former T-Mobile CEO John Legere had already approached Musk about leading the social media site but received a stiff response, JEE News reports.
Legere could be a perfect fit for Twitter if he can overcome this initial lack of interest. He is a corporate executive with experience in managing large organizations. He also has some comeback experience, having taken T-Mobile from a struggling, nearly forgotten No. 4 player to the nation’s second-largest cell phone carrier.
Legere similarly calls JEE News News chief Roger Cheng brash and erratic, but there’s a technique to his madness that Twitter could find useful.
Margaret Sullivan
Margaret Sullivan, a former media columnist for The Washington Post and an innovative public editor for The New York Times, understands well the potential of media platforms to inform and empower — or sow the seeds of disbelief. False content turns into a haven.
Yes, he does not hold the position of CEO of an important, complex firm. But she can assemble a leadership team to handle operations, technology and content moderation while focusing on the more important tasks of defining strategy and ground rules for a new social media platform where ethics , values like transparency and trust are not the only ones. Buzzwords for tweets.
Katrina is fake
Caterina Fake has achieved success in the media world as well as in the tech sector. He began his career in the computer sector as the manager of Netscape’s community forums.
Along with co-founder Stuart Butterfield, he co-founded Flickr, a leading and popular photo-sharing site, as a result of his expertise in blogging and online communities. In 2005, Yahoo bought it for about $20 million.
Elon Musk
The outlet’s senior writer Daniel Van Boom believes Musk won’t quit. To get him off Twitter, it’s going to take more than a quick Twitter poll.
There’s a big, fat asterisk next to Musk’s promise to step down because there will still be someone “stupid enough” to accept the position. More than actual change, Musk’s time on Twitter has been characterized by showmanship.
He has toyed with many new concepts but then abandoned them after realizing all their drawbacks. Musk tried to monetize the platform by charging $8 to be verified, but later removed the option after advertisers objected to accounts impersonating Coke, Nintendo and, most notably, Eli Lilly. .
Musk said free speech was available again in October, but later tightened restrictions when hate speech began to appear on the site.
Red Hastings
Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-CEO, has already met one criterion that Musk must win over: public adulation. Hastings said at the NYT Deal Book conference last month that Musk is “the most daring, creative guy on Earth” and that “what he’s done in a variety of areas is amazing.”
Realistically, it’s unlikely that Hastings would be interested in the position because Netflix doesn’t work with user-generated content and content moderation is one of Twitter’s ongoing problems. For Hastings, this is largely unexplored territory.
