Elon Musk Says Twitter Is Getting a New CEO Within Weeks

Elon Musk has announced in a tweet today that Twitter will be getting a new CEO and that “she will be starting in six weeks.”

Musk has served as CEO since acquiring the social media platform in October 2022, but he says he'll be transitioning to a new role in the coming weeks. He'll be the executive chair and CTO, in charge of overseeing product, software, and SysOps.

Further details have yet to be revealed.

Twitter's New CEO Has Her Task Cut Out for Her

Twitter sold itself to Musk for $44 billion, but was recently valued at $20 billion — a valuation drop of more than fifty percent in less than a year. Musk has said that he sees a path towards a $200 billion value, but trends would have to reverse themselves pretty quickly for that to manifest any time soon.

Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!

My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023

That's a tall order for anyone. But for the yet-unnamed new CEO, it could mean butting heads with Musk himself, who'll remain in a position of power within the company, and who saw valuation plummet under his recent decisions.

A New Leader Is Just the Latest Big Change at Twitter

In the meantime, Twitter is still rolling out changes. Some of them don't seem bad, such as the decision to launch encrypted DMs, but others seem like they might reduce interest in using the platform.

For example, any users inactive for the past 30 days might be deleted entirely, which will reduce the benefit of preserving historical data such as the accounts of deceased celebrities or the social platform's role in historical moments.

One group is likely to love the new CEO, however: Tesla's investors, who have been concerned about Tesla CEO Musk's focus shifting too far towards Twitter. Tesla Inc shares spiked 2.4% in volume following the news of a new Twitter head.

Will Musk Step Down This Time?

This isn't the first time Musk has floated the concept of stepping down from his CEO role amid more than a few controversial decisions. His previous statements on the issue have led to plenty of news cycles, with no results.

In December 2022, Musk posted a poll asking if he should step down as CEO, saying in it that he would “abide by the results.” He lost, with 57.5% of the total votes in favor of him stepping down, and 42.5% against.

Then in April, Musk addressed the question again, saying that he had appointed his dog as CEO.

Now, we just have a single tweet to judge if Twitter is getting a new CEO. It certainly looks possible this time. Still, only one thing's for sure: The fact that you're reading this article means that we've milked yet another news cycle out of the question.