Elon Musk “I don’t want to be CEO of Twitter or Tesla.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk pointed to the successor to step down as Tesla CEO, and it is known that he will not be on the CEO position of Twitter, which he recently acquired.
According to major foreign media such as Reuters and CNBC on the 16th (local time), CEO Musk said in a trial testimony on the Tesla compensation package at the Delaware Equity Court in the U.S. that “Honestly, I don’t want to be the CEO of any company.”
In his testimony that day, he recently devoted most of his working hours to Twitter, but added, “Twitter (work) hours will be reduced in the future. “I’ll find someone to take charge of Twitter instead of me.” He added that Twitter’s restructuring will be completed soon.
As soon as the acquisition of Twitter was completed last month, CEO Musk is undergoing massive restructuring, firing about half of all employees and sending out 80% of contract workers. In particular, in the morning of that day, he sent Twitter employees an “ultimate notification” email asking employees who would not work hard and employees who would not share their vision to leave the company.
According to data obtained by the New York Times (NYT), CEO Musk informed employees to decide whether to work for him or leave the company by 5 p.m. local time on the 17th. He also suggested, “If you don’t want to continue working to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0, you’ll get a severance pay equivalent to a three-month wage.”
CEO Musk is also reported to be planning to step down from Tesla’s CEO position. Tesla Director James Murdoch of Tesla’s board testified in court that “CEO Musk has found a potential successor to lead Tesla over the past few months.”
At the trial, the plaintiff’s lawyer asked Murdoch to confirm the fact that “CEO Musk had never pointed to anyone as a potential successor,” and Murdoch replied like this. However, it did not mention specific details such as the identity of the successor.
Antoyno Gracias, who served as Tesla’s director from 2007 to last year and is known as a longtime friend of Musk’s CEO, was also discussed in court in the past to have an “administrative CEO” to ease Musk’s burden. But I couldn’t find the right person at the time,” he said.
WSJ interpreted this as “a sign that CEO Musk can think about Tesla’s next chapter,” and Tesla investor Jean Muster wrote on Twitter, “It should be noted that there is a big difference between finding someone and actually getting them to take the job.”
Until last year, CEO Musk said he had no plans to review Tesla CEO successors, and at Tesla’s shareholders’ meeting in August, he also drew a line on the possibility of naming a successor, saying, “I intend to be with Tesla as long as I am useful.” However, the amount of work that has recently increased due to the acquisition of Twitter seems to have changed his mind. CEO Musk recently reported that he is working at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, addressing accommodation and lodging.