Heisenberg Media, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk has said he would reduce his time at Twitter and eventually find a new CEO to run the social media company, adding that he hoped to complete an organizational restructuring this week.
Musk made the remarks while testifying in a Delaware court on Wednesday, November 16 to defend against claims that his $56 billion pay package at Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) was based on easy-to-achieve performance targets and was approved by a compliant board of directors.
Tesla investors have been increasingly concerned about the time that Musk is devoting to turning around Twitter and on Wednesday, shares of the company fell 3%.
“There’s an initial burst of activity needed post-acquisition to reorganize the company,” Musk said in his testimony. “But then I expect to reduce my time at Twitter.”
Musk also admitted that some Tesla engineers were assisting in evaluating Twitter’s engineering teams, but he said it was on a “voluntary basis” and “after hours.”
The billionaire’s first two weeks as Twitter’s owner has been marked by chaos as he quickly fired Twitter’s previous chief executive and other senior leaders and then laid off half of Twitter’s staff earlier this month.
Musk sent an email to Twitter employees early Wednesday, telling them they needed to decide by Thursday whether they wanted to stay on at the company to work “long hours at high intensity” or take a severance package of three months of pay.
