Elon Musk announces resignation as CEO of Twitter!

San Francisco, California - Elon Musk has said he is officially transitioning away from his position as CEO of Twitter!

Elon Musk said he is stepping down as Twitter CEO and that his new replacement will take the reins in about six weeks.
Elon Musk said he is stepping down as Twitter CEO and that his new replacement will take the reins in about six weeks.  © OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP

The 51-year-old announced in a tweet on Thursday that he has found a new boss for the company.

Exactly who will be taking Musk's place is unknown, but he referred to his replacement as "she."

"Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter," Musk wrote.

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"She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops."

Earlier this week, Musk announced a handful of game-changing new features would be coming to the platform, allowing more Direct Message replies, encrypted messages, and voice and video chat directly through Twitter.

In December, Musk let Twitter users vote on whether he should step down as CEO, with 57% of the 17.5 million participants voting for change in leadership.

"The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive," he wrote.

"I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!" Musk added. "After that, I will just run the software & servers teams."

He joked in February that his dog Floki was serving as an "amazing" new CEO.

Is Elon Musk's time as Twitter CEO really coming to an end?

Musk took the reins of Twitter in October after buying the company for $44-billion in a tumultuous deal filled with legal drama.

Since then, he has had a chaotic run, overseeing more than half of the company's global workforce laid off, firing the entire board of directors, the loosening of content moderation, banning journalists' accounts, and reinstating previously banned accounts – many of them far-right – which experts claim have caused a spike in hateful content on the site.

He has also helmed a fumbled rollout of the Twitter Blue subscription service, as well as advertisers pausing spending over concerns about his own erratic behavior and the company's direction.

The world awaits more info on the cryptic announcement and just who is stepping into his shoes.

Cover photo: OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP

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