Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk announced on Thursday that he is stepping down as CEO of Twitter after hiring a woman – whose identity has not been released – to take over the role.
“Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!” Musk tweeted. “My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”
In December, Musk polled Twitter users on whether he should resign his top post, and most of them said yes. At the time he said he “will abide by the results of” the poll.
When voting closed on the poll, 57.5 percent of users had voted yes, while 42.5 percent voted no. More than 17.5 million people voted.
Before tweeting the poll, Musk said: “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.” He originally promised no policies would change until a “moderation council” could be convened, but he walked that back later.
Musk finalized his $44 billion purchase of Twitter late last year and quickly fired multiple executives, including then-CEO Parag Agrawal and chief financial officer Ned Sega. He also fired Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, and Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel.
Around the same time, Musk shared a video of himself carrying a sink into Twitter’s headquarters as a gimmick to draw attention to his takeover of the social media giant.
“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” Musk tweeted along with video of himself carrying a sink into Twitter.
Musk offered to buy 100 percent of Twitter for $54.20 per share “in cash” in earlier 2022. At the time, the Space X CEO said the deal was his “best and final offer.”
In an SEC filing submitted at the time, Musk told Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor that he would “unlock” Twitter’s “extraordinary potential.”
This was a breaking news story. The details were periodically updated as more information became available.
