Elon Musk says he's found a new Twitter CEO: 'She will be starting in ~6 weeks!'
- Elon Musk said on Thursday that he'd found a new CEO for Twitter.
- The billionaire didn't specify who would be taking over for him at the social-media company.
Elon Musk said on Thursday that he'd found a new CEO for Twitter.
The billionaire didn't specify who'd be taking over. Musk became Twitter CEO, describing himself as "Chief Twit," last year after he bought the company and fired CEO Parag Agrawal within hours of taking the social-media company private.
"Excited to announce that I've hired a new CEO for X/Twitter," Musk said on Twitter. "She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops."
Musk didn't respond to a request for comment. Twitter responded to a request for comment with an automated message that didn't address the issue.
Tesla's stock was up 2% after the announcement. Since Musk took over as Twitter CEO in November, some Tesla shareholders have expressed concern over his focus on the social-media company as Musk has taken to sleeping at its headquarters. Most recently, several Tesla investors wrote an open letter saying Musk had been "distracted" by other ventures and calling for him to be reined in.
Musk has said from the beginning that he had planned for his stint as Twitter's CEO to be temporary. In December, the billionaire said he would eventually resign as CEO of Twitter after he ran a poll asking Twitter users whether he should quit and the majority voted in favor of Musk stepping down.
He said earlier this year that he might need until the end of the year before he was able to hire a successor.
"I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it's in a financially healthy place and the product road map is clearly laid out," Musk said at the World Government Summit in Dubai in February.
Since buying the company for $44 billion, Musk has laid off about 80% of Twitter's staff and initiated several major changes, including eliminating the social-media site's legacy verified check marks. Last month, Musk said the company was "roughly breaking even" and told the BBC that had he not taken charge, Twitter was on course to run out of cash in about four months.
Musk is in the midst of trying to increase subscription revenue through his overhauled Twitter Blue program. The company makes most of its money through advertising but has seen numerous advertisers slow their spending on the site since Musk's takeover. The company's revenue reportedly plunged about 40% in December compared with the same period the previous year after about half of Twitter's advertisers left the platform.