Gizmodo has tried to ask itself which is the ideal profile of the next Twitter CEO, drawing up a short list (between half-jokingly).
Elon Musk has promised that he will step down as CEO of Twitter as soon as he identifies a successor “crazy enough” to take his place. Right from the start, Musk explained that he would only take the reins of Twitter temporarily and that he would soon return to focus on his other two main companies, namely Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk also recently posted a poll on Twitter, asking users if he should step down. The result was merciless: 57.5% of the users who participated in the survey voted for his resignation.
Twitter isn’t doing the billionaire any good. The social network closed the last quarter with losses of 270 million dollars, and it also has to pay almost 1.5 billion dollars a year in interest alone on some past debts. What’s more, the value of Tesla’s shares – on which the bulk of Musk’s fortune depends – has almost halved since the acquisition of Twitter.
Gizmodo has tried to ask itself what the ideal profile of the next Twitter CEO is , drawing up a short list (between half-jokingly). “We expect a person who has already managed a top-level tech company to be identified,” writes the magazine. The first hypothesis takes into consideration Travis Kalanick , the controversial former CEO and founder of Uber. Known for his unscrupulous style and a strong moral flexibility, Kalanick had been forced to resign after some scandals that had rocked his company. Today Kalanick founded and runs a leading company in the nascent cloud kitchen industry . A similar, but less controversial profile is that of Adam Neumann, founder of WeWork.
According to Gizmodo, the possibility that the role passes to a woman should also be seriously considered, in which case the perfect profile would be that of Sheryl Sandberg , who until recently was Mark Zuckerberg’s right arm in Meta (at the time still called Facebook).
Gizmodo’s list continues with a slew of unlikely candidates, including several bloggers and podcasters with no management experience. A boutade, on which we gladly defer. Reference is also made to Jared Kushner , Donald Trump’s son-in-law who we know was hanging out with Musk right before the billionaire posted his resignation poll.
It’s possible, and likely, that Musk could fish the next CEO from his other companies. It would be a low-risk choice, which would allow the baton to be passed on to a manager in whom Musk would already have full confidence. Steve Jurvetson , a member of the SpaceX Board of Directors and with an excellent cursus studiorum , would consequently be an excellent candidate. So would Gwynne Shotwell, COO and President of SpaceX, were it not that she is too fundamental to the proper functioning of the aerospace company.
