Elon Musk Says He'll Resign as Twitter CEO

He says it'll happen 'as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job'
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 20, 2022 3:15 AM CST
Updated Dec 20, 2022 8:38 PM CST
After Period of Silence, Elon Musk Is Tweeting Again
Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington, Monday, March 9, 2020.   (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
UPDATE Dec 20, 2022 8:38 PM CST

After a period of uncertainty, Elon Musk has confirmed that he plans to abide by the results of a poll that asked whether he should step down as Twitter CEO, which ended with 57.5% in favor of resignation. "I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!" Musk tweeted Tuesday evening. "After that, I will just run the software & servers teams." After the poll closed Monday, Musk was silent on Twitter for an unusually long time before replying "Interesting" to users who suggested the poll had been hijacked by bots. The Twitter owner's response Tuesday leaves him room to stay on as CEO for an "undetermined time frame," the Washington Post notes. Musk's announcement followed an 8.1% drop in Tesla's share price Tuesday, which knocked another $7.9 billion off his net worth, per Forbes.

Dec 20, 2022 3:15 AM CST

Elon Musk said he'd abide by the results of a Twitter poll asking whether he should step down as CEO of the social network, but it remains unclear whether he'll actually do so nearly a day after 57.5% of voters said he should give up the post. As the Guardian reports, Musk was uncharacteristically silent on Twitter in the "immediate hours" after the poll closed, but then he replied to a user who suggested that only those who pay to subscribe to Twitter's controversial new Blue service should be able to vote in "policy related polls" since they're the ones who "actually have skin in the game."

"Good point. Twitter will make that change," Musk replied. He later tweeted simply, "Interesting" in response to a tweet suggesting that perhaps bots influenced the results of the poll. The Daily Beast reports he did not respond to a request for a comment on the poll results. NBC News reports that Paul Graham, one of the most well-known Musk supporters who's stepped away from Twitter in recent days due to the drama over the social media company barring users from linking to competing sites, wrote in a blog post, "[Musk] could still salvage the situation. He’s the sort of person it would be a big mistake to write off. And I hope he does. I would be delighted to go back to using Twitter regularly.” (Could Snoop Dogg replace Musk?)

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