Elon Musk says he has chosen a new CEO for Twitter

“Excited to announce that I’ve a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software and sysops.”

Musk’s announcement does not come as a surprise, and the Tesla billionaire has said for months that he does not plan to remain in the CEO role for the long term. It’s not clear who his successor will be.

Musk acquired Twitter last year for $44 billion and then took the company on a chaotic ride. He has reversed most efforts to police the site of inflammatory content, and started charging users for blue check marks that previously signified that a user’s identity had been verified. In some cases, he made changes only to reverse himself later. All the while, advertisers fled the service for fear of their marketing messages being placed next to controversial posts. 

He has also laid off huge numbers of staff, while others have quit on their own. He said in an interview last month that employees were down to less than 8,000, a decline of roughly 80% compared to the number he inherited last year.