Report: Elon Musk plans to be Twitter's interim CEO when deal closes

Thomas Barrabi
New York Post
Thu, 05 May 2022 17:38 UTC

© Unknown

Elon Musk has yet to publicly comment on Twitter’s future leadership structure.

Elon Musk reportedly plans to serve as Twitter's interim chief executive after his $44 billion takeover of the social media giant is complete - adding yet another CEO title to his busy schedule.

The 50-year-old tech tycoon — who is currently CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as smaller startups including the brain-implanted computer company Neuralink — is expected to fill the top job at Twitter on a temporary basis likely lasting a few months, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The report appeared to spook Tesla investors. Shares of the Musk-led electric car firm were trading more than 3% lower after the opening bell.

Representatives for Twitter and Musk did not immediately return a request for comment on the report.

Musk has yet to publicly address his plans for Twitter's long-term leadership. He has outlined several goals for the app once the deal closes, including a renewed focus on free speech, the elimination of spam bots and an overhaul of Twitter's monetization strategy.

Last week, Reuters reported that Musk has already identified a CEO candidate for Twitter - though the individual has yet to be identified.

© Twitter

Twitter chief legal counsel Vijaya Gadde, new owner Elon Musk, and current CEO Parag Agrawal

Musk's buyout has sparked speculation that current executives, such as Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and the company's top legal officer, Vijaya Gadde, will be out of a job when the transaction is complete.

Agrawal has served as Twitter's CEO for just a few months, having replaced the company's founder and former boss Jack Dorsey last November.

An SEC filing earlier Thursday revealed Musk has secured more than $7 billion in funding from outside investors to back his bid, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, private equity giant Sequoia Capital and billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.

The filing also showed that Musk will continue to engage with other potential investors - including Dorsey, who may contribute some of his shares toward the acquisition.

© Joe Raedle via Getty Images

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey could contribute shares to Elon Musk’s buyout bid.

Last week, Tesla shares sold off after Musk dumped more than $8 billion of his stock in the company as he prepared to fund his Twitter bid. Musk said he does not plan to sell any more Tesla stock.

Musk offered to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share after an earlier deal for him to take a seat on the company's board fell apart. Musk indicated that he lacked confidence in Twitter's current management to achieve his desired objectives.

While pitching banks to back his bid for Twitter, Musk outlined plans to slash executive pay, among other cost-cutting measures, according to Reuters.

Comment: Bill Gates has decided he needs to get into it, presumably to protect his covid vaccine narrative

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is bracing for potential trouble when fellow billionaire Elon Musk completes his acquisition of Twitter, saying the free-speech advocate could make misinformation more prevalent by failing to properly police comment on the social media platform.

"He actually could make it worse," Gates said of Musk on Wednesday in a Wall Street Journal interview. He added that the South African has a "mind-blowing" track record of building successful businesses at Tesla and SpaceX by being bolder than competitors and "really showing them up."

"I kind of doubt that will happen this time, but we should have an open mind and never underestimate Elon," Gates said. "What's his goal? Where he talks about the openness, how does he feel about something that says vaccines kill people or that Bill Gates is tracking people? Is that one of the things he thinks should be spread? So it's still... It's not totally clear what he's going to do."

Gates argued that governments and social media companies failed to fully squash false commentary related to the Covid-19 pandemic. "When you don't have the trusted leaders speaking out about vaccines, it's pretty hard for the platforms to work against that," he said. "So I think we have a leadership problem, and we have a platform problem."

Musk reached a deal with Twitter last week to buy the company for $44 billion. He has vowed to restore freedom of speech to the platform, setting off fears from the White House to Silicon Valley that Twitter will no longer censor commentary that establishment voices brand as "misinformation." President Joe Biden's administration announced plans to create a Disinformation Governance Board just two days after Twitter's directors agreed to accept Musk's offer.

However, determining whether speech is false often is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, some commentary that was censored early in the pandemic - such as a theory that the virus originated in a Chinese lab - became mainstream in later months. The woman chosen to head up the Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, has herself been a spreader of false conspiracy theories, such as dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as a "Russian influence op."

Musk has claimed that "free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy." He mocked those who criticized his Twitter deal, saying, "The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all."

The Wall Street Journal interview came one day after Gates told NBC News that perhaps there should be laws "that strike a better balance of free speech versus conspiracy theories confusing people." On Wednesday, he said he previously thought "human judgment" would be strong enough to contain the spread of absurdly false speech.

"So far, at least under the stress of the pandemic, that hasn't stopped the crazy stuff from getting out and kind of resonating with people," Gates said.

The vaccine and climate-change activist claimed that he's reserving judgment on whether Musk will make Twitter better or worse. "The fact that he didn't buy Twitter to make money means that if there's something great that can be done, if all you need is money and hiring great engineers, he's probably as good a person as any."

Are his goals for what it ends up being, does it match this idea of less extreme falsehoods spreading so quickly -- weird conspiracy theories? Does he share that goal or not?

Days before reaching his deal with Twitter, Musk accused Gates of short-selling Tesla stock - essentially betting on shares of the electric vehicle maker to fall. He rejected a meeting to discuss climate-change philanthropy with Gates after hearing that the software magnate was shorting the stock, reportedly saying, "Sorry, I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change."

Asked on Wednesday whether he shorted Tesla shares, Gates said, "It's possible that the stock went down and whoever shorted the stock made money, I don't know. I don't think whether one is short or long Tesla is a statement about your seriousness about climate change."