Elon Musk’s short-lived tenure as CEO of Twitter is coming to an end this summer. On Thursday, Musk announced on Twitter that he’d hired a new CEO to run Twitter. The new CEO will assume the role in around six weeks, but Musk didn’t reveal her name.
In the same tweet, Musk said that he would be transitioning to “exec chair & CTO,” where he will oversee product, software, and system operations going forward. Despite walking away from the CEO role, it’s clear that Musk still wants to have a say in the day-to-day operations of the social media platform he paid $44 billion to acquire.
After Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter last October, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO made it clear that he would be passing on his CEO torch sooner than later. In a Delaware courtroom last November, Musk said he expected to “reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.” About a month later, he tweeted that he would “resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job” in response to a poll.
Musk’s reign as Twitter CEO has been incredibly tumultuous. Within days of the acquisition, he fired virtually every top executive at the company, along with hundreds of employees. Then, in the weeks that followed, many advertisers paused spending on the platform, which, by Musk’s own admission, led to “a massive drop in revenue.”
One of Musk’s most significant changes during his time as CEO was removing “legacy” blue checkmarks from thousands of users to drum up business for Twitter Blue subscriptions, which now include a verified checkmark for the $8 monthly fee. According to Mashable, approximately 620,000 users were subscribed to Twitter Blue at the end of April 2023.
If and when we learn more about the new CEO, we’ll be sure to let you know.
