Elon Musk Says He'll Step Down as Twitter CEO

By Michael Hein

The search is on for a Twitter CEO who can replace Elon Musk. On Sunday night, Musk pulled one of his most outlandish stunts in his brief tenure as head of Twitter by posting a poll asking users if he should step down. When they voted overwhelmingly "yes," Musk announced that he will step down "as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!"

Musk's entire journey at Twitter has been bizarre, from his purchase of the company in October for $44 billion to his seemingly flippant changes to its interface, not to mention his relentless slashing of its staff. Late on Sunday night he tweeted his poll, asking: "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll." By the next morning the poll was closed and 57.5 percent of voters had asked musk to step down, but he did not respond until Tuesday night. He then wrote: "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 and servers teams."

Users who have been frustrated by Musk will undoubtedly be happy to hear this news, in spite of the fact that it comes with no timeline or assurances. Musk will also apparently remain the official owner of Twitter, though there's no telling what kind of power that will give him once the new CEO takes over. Musk certainly intends to stay involved in the website's operations.

In the meantime, many economic analysts believe that Musk knew which way the poll would go and planned to step down regardless of this stunt. According to a report by CNBC, many critics have called Twitter a distraction from Musk's other businesses – most notably Tesla, where stock prices have dropped to a shocking low point. Long-time Tesla investor Ross Gerber tweeted about the problem on Tuesday, apparently calling for Musk to step down from that company as well.

"Tesla stock price now reflects the value of having no CEO. Great job tesla BOD – Time for a shake up," he wrote. Musk responded in tweets of his own, suggesting that Tesla's nosedive has more to do with macroeconomic factors than his personal performance.

There's no telling when Musk will step down from Twitter, nor what functions he will retain at the company once he does. At the time of this writing, he is still acting as the social media site's CEO. 

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