Elon told a court that he’s planning to bring in a new leader of Twitter, which is in the middle of a chaotic but “fundamental organizational restructuring.”
Elon Musk is looking for a new Twitter CEO and plans to spend less time at the social media company he just bought for $44 billion.
Speaking at a trial over the size of his compensation as CEO of electric car maker Tesla on Nov. 16, Musk said, “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
That came two days after he admitted that by running all three companies, “I have too much work on my plate, that is for sure” at a business conference.
Musk also said that he has spent much of his time recently focusing on Twitter, which he acquired on Oct. 27, but “expected the fundamental organizational restructuring” of Twitter to be completed soon.
Chaos Reigns
Within three weeks of carrying a sink into twitter’s headquarters, Musk fired the board and all top executives, as well as half of the staff, while flailing through several very hasty and chaotic product changes, most notably the $8 Twitter Blue paid verification check mark that had to be paused on Nov. 11 — just six days after it launched — after a spate of fake but verified accounts caused havoc.
Most notably, pharma giant Eli Lilly’s stock price dropped almost 4.5% on Nov. 10 after a fake account, with a reasonable name — @EliLillyandCo — and the $8 blue checkmark, tweeted, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.”
While the real Eli Lilly account — which uses the frankly less likely-sounding @LillyPad — quickly posted a denial, it took Twitter hours to get the fake post down. It restarted a broader political discussion about the price of insulin, which manufacturers, including Lilly, have sent skyrocketing in recent years. Lilly also pulled millions in Twitter advertising.
Another fake account, for video gaming firm Nintendo, had its iconic Mario with a raised middle finger. A fake President George W. Bush tweeted “I miss killing Iraqis.”
And that was after a round of companies from General Mills to General Motors had already paused advertising after fears — and signs — of an increase in extremist and racist rhetoric if “free speech absolutist” Musk cut into Twitter’s content moderation.
He already had to ask the laid-off employees to come back that raised the specter of a Twitter bankruptcy.
Crypto Talks
For all those problems, Musk’s ownership of Twitter has a lot of interest for the broader crypto industry, and not just because he’s repeatedly shown that he can substantially raise or lower the price of both Bitcoin and especially his favored Dogecoin with the simple tweet.
Musk has talked extensively about increasing the company’s use of cryptocurrencies for payments, which began well before his tenure with the signing of payments processors, Stripe, to allow USDC stablecoin payments back in April and Strike to enable Bitcoin Lightning Network payments in September.
That could become a bigger deal as Musk has talked extensively about helping creators monetize their accounts, which would require more and more on-Twitter payments activity.
He’s also supported crypto payments in the past at Tesla, announcing plans to accept Bitcoin for its cars last year — although he quickly reversed direction due to pushback over its environmental impact — and does accept dogecoin in payment for Tesla merchandise (like T-shirts, not cars).
And, he invested $1.5 billion of its treasury into Bitcoin and still holds more than $200 million of it, Decrypt reported last month.
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