The billionaire owner of Twitter says he wants to make sure the platform is in a ‘financially sound place’ before finding a new CEO.
Twitter owner Elon Musk has hinted that he could take over the tech giant’s CEO baton by the end of this year.
Musk, who bought Twitter in October for $44 billion, said on Wednesday that the end of 2023 would be a “good time” to find someone else to lead the social media giant.
“I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financially sound place and the product roadmap is clearly laid out,” Musk said during a virtual appearance at the World Government Summit in Dubai after being asked if and when she had found a new CEO. that person would be employed.
Musk added that “probably towards the end of this year would be a good time” because he expects the company to be in a stable position by then.
In December, Musk said on Twitter that he would step down as CEO “as soon as I find someone stupid enough to take over!”
Musk, who also runs Tesla and is among the world’s richest people, made the remarks after a majority of respondents in a Twitter poll voted he should resign.
Musk’s leadership of the platform has divided users, with conservatives applauding his commitment to free speech and many liberals expressing concern over the rise of misinformation and hate speech.
Musk, a self-described free-speech absolutist, has vowed to encourage diversity of opinion on Twitter and tackle what he says is the liberal bias that reigned under the platform’s previous management.
Since taking office, Musk has fired about half of Twitter’s workforce, overhauled its moderation policy and reinstated the accounts of suspended prominent figures, including former US President Donald Trump.
Critics have accused Musk of giving an open hand to extremists to spread hate speech on the platform and censoring criticism he doesn’t like, including suspending a number of journalists he accused of doxing him and his family.
The platform has also experienced repeated crashes and outages under the billionaire tech mogul’s watch.
Speaking in Dubai on Wednesday, Musk, who described his ownership of Twitter as a “rollercoaster”, hailed the platform as a valuable communications tool despite recent difficulties.
“As a forum for communication, it’s great. And I would just encourage more communication… to kind of speak in an authentic voice,” he said.
“Sometimes, people will have someone else be a kind of Twitter manager or something like that. People should just do their own tweets… I think that’s the way to go.”