CNN –
Twitter owner Elon Musk confirmed Tuesday evening that he will step down as the company’s CEO, but only when he identifies a successor, directly addressing for the first time a Twitter poll he created this week in which millions of users they voted for his impeachment.
In a tweet, Musk said he would resign “as soon as I find someone dumb enough to take the job.”
He added that after his resignation as CEO, Musk would “lead the software and server teams” at Twitter, indicating that he could continue to exert significant influence on the company’s decision-making.
The announcement comes after more than a day of silence on the poll following its result. On Monday, after more than 17 million users had voted, 57.5% of whom said Musk should resign, the billionaire executive addressed the results only indirectly. He suggested that future Twitter polls could be restricted to paid users of Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service.
Musk’s poll asking users if he should step down as CEO came after a massive backlash to Twitter’s abrupt suspension of several journalists who cover him, as well as Twitter’s decision to ban, and then disable, links to other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram. and Mastodon, a fast-growing Twitter rival that has grown eightfold since October.
Musk’s short tenure as CEO has resulted in sweeping and sometimes erratic changes at one of the world’s most influential social media companies.
Under his leadership, Twitter has laid off most of its staff, alienated major advertisers, welcomed former President Donald Trump back to the platform after his suspension following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, and has released internal communications to reporters about Twitter’s operations before. Musk became the owner of the company.
Musk forced remaining employees to pledge to become “extremely tough” on their jobs and stopped enforcing Twitter’s policy against Covid-19 misinformation.
Within days, Twitter launched, then was forced to disable, a paid verification feature that was instantly manipulated by satirical accounts impersonating the platform’s top verified brands, athletes and other public figures .
Musk’s penchant for making major product changes based on little more than informal Twitter polls has highlighted his ad hoc, improvisational management style. But this approach has drawn growing criticism from many Twitter users. Last week, Twitter suspended several journalists who had reported on Musk’s permanent ban from an account that tracked his plane.
The mounting criticism of Musk culminated in Sunday’s poll serving as an effective, if unscientific, referendum on Musk’s handling of the company since he closed on his purchase of Twitter in late October.