Elon Musk Promises to Step Down as Head of Twitter — Edward Snowden Throws His Name in the Hat for CEO
Tesla CEO and Twitter chief Elon Musk has promised to step down as head of Twitter. As the billionaire seeks a new CEO to run the social media platform, privacy advocate Edward Snowden threw his name in the hat, stating that he takes payment in bitcoin. “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive,” Musk clarified.
Elon Musk Discusses Finding New Twitter CEO
Elon Musk set up a poll on Twitter over the weekend asking his 122.3 million followers whether he should step down as head of the social media platform. The billionaire added that he will abide by the results of the poll, which ended with 57.5% of over 17.5 million respondents wanting him to step down.
Responding to a comment about him having a new CEO picked out already and that he will retire to being chairman of the Twitter board, Musk clarified: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.” In another tweet, the Tesla chief explained:
The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.
Many people urged Musk not to quit. “If Elon Musk steps down from Twitter, I will close my account. He’s why I opened it in the first place,” one exclaimed. “The crowd chose to crucify Jesus too, remember that Elon Musk. The crowd is not always right. Leaders LEAD, they don’t bow!” another told the billionaire. “Stand up for free speech. The First Amendment needs you,” a third user emphasized.
In November, Musk said in court that he did not want to be the CEO of Twitter, stating: “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.”
Comments from people indicating that they could serve as the new Twitter CEO also flooded Musk’s tweet. Among those who responded was whistleblower Edward Snowden, a free speech and privacy advocate who has been living in exile in Russia after he exposed a National Security Agency (NSA) spying program affecting millions of Americans in 2013. He wrote: “I take payment in bitcoin.”
Replying to a question about whether he is “strong enough to be despised” as the CEO of Twitter, noting that Musk’s main problem is that he is “being steered by right-wing crazies away from what he wanted Twitter 2.0 to be,” Snowden wrote:
Oh, I think I’ve weathered a little criticism in the past.
Some people complained that they did not see Musk’s poll in time to vote. Many users suspect that most voters were bots. “This poll is not fair, I didn’t even see it till the last day because this time of the year, like me, most people are busy getting ready for the holidays and haven’t been able to even log in, and probably most of the votes on this poll are from made up Dem accounts!” one user stressed.
Kim Dotcom told Musk: “It’s unwise to run a poll like this when you are now deep state enemy #1. They have the biggest bot army on Twitter. They have 100k ‘analysts’ with 30-40 accounts all voting against you. Let’s clean up and then run this poll again. The majority has faith in you.”
