Elon Musk is planning to step down as chief executive of Twitter “toward the end of this year” after putting the business on a more sound financial footing, the billionaire has said.

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Edited by|HUGH GAY

ECONOMIC SECTION- CJ JOURNALIST

WORLD - Feb. 15, 2023

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Mr. Musk, who bought the social media website for $44bn (£36bn) four months ago, told the World Government Summit in Dubai on Wednesday that he would find someone else to take over operations at Twitter.

“I’m guessing toward the end of this year should be good timing to find someone else to run the company,” he said.

“I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financially healthy place and the product road map is clearly laid out.”

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The 51-year-old has repeatedly suggested he will step back from Twitter at some point, without giving a timeline. Mr. Musk told a US court in November that he wants to hire somebody else to run Twitter for him.

The entrepreneur, who also remains chief executive of Tesla, has been deeply involved in the day-to-day operations of Twitter since buying the business in October. He laid off thousands of staff and closed offices in a bid to slash costs, warning shortly after taking over that the business was on a path to bankruptcy without radical action.

Mr. Musk’s involvement in operations has reportedly even extended down to ordering software engineers to alter algorithms to boost his posts after a message from US president Joe Biden became more popular than one of his own tweets.

The Platformer website reported that 80 engineers were taken off other tasks and told to “boost Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000”. As a result, Mr. Musk’s missives appeared to flood Twitter, with users complaining of wall-to-wall tweets from the billionaire.

His fixation on the fine details of how Twitter works has fuelled the ire of investors in Tesla, Mr. Musk's other main business.

Wedbush Securities’ chief Dan Ives has said Mr. Musk was “laser-focused on Twitter, which has been an ongoing nightmare that never ends for investors.”

However, shares in Tesla have rallied strongly this year, almost doubling since the end of December, after discounting helped the company beat forecasts.