Musk says he’s hired new Twitter CEO to replace him

Twitter CEO Elon Musk said he has hired a new chief executive to replace him overseeing the social media platform, months after he initially said he would step down from the role. 

Musk tweeted Thursday that he has hired a new CEO for Twitter who will start in about six weeks. He did not name who he chose but indicated the new CEO is female. 

He said his role at Twitter will transition to serving as executive chair and chief technology officer to oversee “product,” software and system operations. 

Musk agreed to step down from his position as CEO after a majority, 57.5 percent, voted in a Twitter poll he posted in December that he should resign. He said in the post that he would “abide by the results of this poll.” 

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” he tweeted after the poll’s 12-hour window closed. 

Musk has used Twitter polls on other occasions to make significant decisions regarding the platform, like whether to lift the suspensions of some journalists’ accounts and public figures like former President Trump. 

Musk, who also serves as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has instituted a wide range of new policies for the platform since he acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October. 

He has branded himself as a “free-speech absolutist” and sought to limit Twitter’s content moderating of alleged misinformation. He has also implemented several measures aimed at reducing costs for the company, including the Twitter Blue verification system in which users must pay $8 per month to have a blue checkmark tied to their account. 

He subsequently phased out what he referred to as “legacy” checkmarks that were given to notable public figures. 

Musk also laid off about half of all Twitter employees soon after taking over to cut down on expenses.