Elon Musk to find new head to steer Twitter

NEW DELHI: Elon Musk has decided to find a new leader to oversee Twitter. Musk made the remarks on Wednesday while testifying in a Delaware court to defend against claims that his $56 billion pay package at Tesla was based on easy to achieve performance targets and was approved by a compliant board of directors, the media reported.

Musk intended to finish an organisational restructuring this week and he expected to reduce his time at Twitter as Tesla investors have been increasingly concerned about the time that Musk is devoting to turning around the microblogging site.

“There’s an initial burst of activity needed post-acquisition to reorganize the company. But then I expect to reduce my time at Twitter,” Musk said in his testimony. In about two weeks under Musk’s leadership, Twitter has fired over 3,700 people, and a slew of high-ranking execs have resigned.

‘I don’t want to be CEO of Twitter or any company’

Musk has also said he does not want to be the CEO of any company, be it Tesla or Twitter.

Musk made the comment during a testimony at a trial in the US on Wednesday, challenging his controversial pay compensation package at Tesla. “I frankly don’t want to be the CEO of any company,” he said, it was reported.

“At SpaceX, it’s really that I’m responsible for the engineering of the rockets and Tesla for the technology in the car that makes it successful,” he was quoted as saying.

“So, CEO is often viewed as somewhat of a business-focused role, but in reality, my role is much more that of an engineer developing technology and making sure that we develop breakthrough technologies and that we have a team of incredible engineers who can achieve those goals,” Musk elaborated.

He said he does not wish to remain CEO of Twitter forever.

“I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time,” he added.

According to James Murdoch, the former Tesla board member, Musk is even thinking about stepping down as CEO of Tesla.

“Investors have expressed concern over Musk’s ability to multi-task and whether the billionaire is taking on too much to legitimately run as many companies as he does,” the report mentioned.

Amid chaos at Twitter, Musk faced two court cases in the US this week, one defending his pay package and the other a manslaughter trial in Los Angeles state for a fatal crash.

Tesla has come under heavy scrutiny on the controversial Autopilot advanced driver assistance system that has allegedly killed many, with both the US federal and state regulators turning up the heat on electric car-maker.

In August, the Department of Motor Vehicles in California accused Musk-run Tesla of running fake claims about its Autopilot and FSD features.