Nicely, we had a very good run, of us. No, wait, sorry – it was a catastrophically unhealthy run, a rollercoaster with out brakes that induced every kind of various chaos and distress for individuals who simply wished to, you already know, use Twitter like a traditional social media platform.

Twitter proprietor and chief government Elon Musk has introduced in a tweet (due to course he did it in a tweet) that he plans to step down as CEO of the social media large, revealing that his substitute – an unnamed lady – shall be taking on in round six weeks’ time.

Excited to announce that I’ve employed a brand new CEO for X/Twitter. She shall be beginning in ~6 weeks!My position will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software program & sysops.Could 11, 2023

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Musk added that he plans to stay round in an operational capability, being “exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software program & sysops”. That appears like various stuff, however then once more, Musk didn’t precisely do a lot as Twitter’s CEO both – aside from costing himself $24 billion {dollars}, I suppose.

There have been rumblings that Musk was on the lookout for a substitute for some time now, and Tesla shareholders have reportedly been placing stress on him to focus extra on the electrical automobile agency than Twitter, so this isn’t solely unsurprising. Based on CNBC, Tesla shares jumped 2% instantly after the announcement.

Ought to I keep or ought to I am going?

I’m not satisfied, although. Bear in mind when Musk posted a Twitter ballot saying he’d step down as CEO if the consumer base voted for him to go? We voted him out, and he wormed his method out of that one by blaming bots and saying that he’d restrict Twitter polls to customers subscribed to Twitter Blue (which he hasn’t finished).

The easy truth is that the self-styled Tony Stark hasn’t actually abided by loads of the issues he’s stated he would since buying Twitter for $44 billion again in October 2022. We’ve seen loads of issues promised which haven’t materialized – although I hope a few of his plans by no means see the sunshine of day, like his invasive plans for telephone name performance that threaten to make Twitter unusable for girls.

It’s telling that he refers back to the social media platform as ‘X/Twitter’ in his announcement. Musk has made no secret of his want to make Twitter (or ‘X’ as he desires it to be identified) the ‘every little thing app’, folding quite a lot of options into it as a part of a daring reimagining that, uh, mainly simply copies WhatsApp.

X gon’ give it to ya

If Musk actually is handing over the reins to a brand new CEO then his tweet suggests he’s going to be focusing much less on working the enterprise facet of issues and extra on the software program facet; which means he might lastly push via the transition to ‘X’ that he so desperately desires.

Is that actually a very good factor, although? Musk merely hasn’t been in a position to make the social media app worthwhile, regardless of makes an attempt to drive customers to pay for Twitter Blue and squeeze companies to entry the Twitter API.

Actually, Elon has been driving the location additional and additional into the bottom – due, partially, to a basic misunderstanding of what made Twitter interesting within the first place. His addition of 10,000-character-long tweets (just for customers who cough up the money for Blue, thoughts) demonstrates a complete lack of expertise of Twitter’s core attraction: social media diminished to bitesize, simply digestible chunks.

In a world the place virtually each social media platform is step by step morphing into the identical homogeneous blur of ten-second video reels manufactured to maximise engagement, Twitter stands out as one thing totally different, one thing distinctive. Musk has been threatening to smash that, and his shifting over to a extra operational position relatively than the corporate’s figurehead might truly be a foul factor for the way forward for Twitter.

As for who’ll be sitting within the CEO chair, there are suspicions floating round (as reported by The Verge) that Musk’s substitute shall be NBC promoting exec Linda Yaccarino, who reportedly desires the job and will get alongside nicely with the Tesla CEO. I don’t wish to get overly political right here, however Yaccarino is seemingly a licensed Trump supporter… I’m certain that may go down nicely on Twitter.