Update: Friday morning, Elon Musk named former NBC Universal global advertising executive Linda Yaccarino as his new chief executive officer. Read more details on the announcement here. The original story as published on Thursday follows below…
Elon Musk has finally found someone “foolish enough” to be the chief executive of his social media company, Twitter.
Less than three full months into his ownership of the company, Musk tweeted a poll in which he asked followers if he should step down as the head of Twitter, promising to abide by its results (57 percent of people said “yes”) but offering no timetable on the transition.
“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job,” Musk affirmed. “After that, I will just run the software and servers teams.”
On Thursday, Musk said his search is finished after he hired a woman to take the job. The unnamed person will start in about six weeks, Musk said, at which point he will transition to the role of executive chairman and chief technology officer.
It is difficult to know if Musk is telling the truth: He is a notorious troll who has pranked technology and business reporters in the past, and often uses his social media account to spread misinformation.
During an interview with the BBC last month, Musk said he appointed his dog as Twitter’s CEO, an apparent joke that caught his interviewer off-guard.
His unwillingness to be serious about Twitter’s business makes it difficult to know if his announcement on Thursday is genuine or just another ruse. Guess we will all have to wait and see.
