Let's get to our next story. Elon Musk confirming that he will step down as CEO of Twitter. Joining us now to discuss this is lad Sevof, who is Bloomberg's tech editor in Tokyo. Glad he doesn't seem to take these things too seriously. He's always kind of poking fun. Let me just read out his tweet for our audience. I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job. After that, I'll just run the software and servers team. So I guess
he thinks it's a bit of fun. Well, it's it's tough to say. I mean, he's spent forty four billion dollars in this company. I don't know how anyone on this planet can take that. It's just a bit of fun um. Some of it may just be putting a happy and an upbeat face on a situation that has
really deteriorated over the course of the year. I mean, if we if we wind the cluickback, It's fascinating to look at this because when early in the spring, Musk announces that he had bought a significant chunk of Twitter shares, uh the share price went up so high that he made the quickest one billion dollars in history. Like his share of Twitter just because he bought a share of it shut up in value by a billion dollars. But since then he wanted to wind it back. He wanted
to not complete the sale. UM the acquisition UM he complained about but uh, he he heard his own reputation. His reputation was as a successful entrepreneur, as a leader of tester that so on um and making breakthrough changes. He hasn't done that and since taking over at the end of October with Twitter, um, his track record has again not being one of success. Um. He ran a pole saying should I step down as Twitter CEO? And this is the thing that's prompting him now to step down?
Users said yes you should as many years faces on point ten million people, Uh said yes you should step down as CEO? And um, I mean it's not a happy situation, even if he's put it on a happy face. So let's talk about potential new CEO. Is he or musk joking? Or who wants the job? Well, okay, let's unpack this. Is there anybody left in management? A lot of people got fired? Or do you go external. And I'm only half joking here, Snoop Dogg through his hat
in the ring. I mean he is a successful businessman. Let's give him that. That is fair. Snoop Dogg is a successful businessman. He's probably as qualified as Musque to run a social media company. I do believe that Musk himself probably underestimated many of the challenges of doing that, because he came in saying what Twitter needs is free speech absolutism, It needs clear rules of the road, and it needs to get rid of all these arbitrary decisions,
which is true. Twitter's previous management did have a whole bunch of moderation challenges where I had to decide is this acceptable to have on the Internet. Now, what Mosque has faced again in a very brief period of time is very similar things. Um yeah, when we're known as Kanye West is a friend of his, well at least a former friend of his, and he was previously temporarily suspended from the service. He came back on mosques urging.
Mosque said welcome back, and then he posted and submitted tweets and the mosque is like, Okay, this is not acceptable. We have to get rid of you. Um, so it is a very challenging task. Who can take over the job. There is nobody leftnally, I mean Mosque clear the house. In terms of the original executive team. Um. He has an inner circle of trusted friends. Amongst them there is David Sachs Um and Jason Calacanists, two of them hosts
the podcast together. Um. They have been very vocal in their suggestions about how you can monetize Twitter, but that's again, I'm not really a normal things for that. For years, they need advertising, um. And there's an inherent conflict between opening this up to you know, things like, um, you know, racial comments and hate speech and such. Advertisers don't like that. They want more stability in the product. So whoever takes this job ultimately is going to have a very tough task. Absolutely,
And there's two points. That one is exactly as you say, Mosques presence a CEO currently has been one of volatility. Has been a great drama. It's been really fascinating. But as you say, that's not a way to run a business or a company or to have steady revenues. So let's challenge number one, Challenge number two, and it's probably the bigger one. And it's why I think Musque is accurate in saying it's kind of poison Chatters, is that you can't run this company as an independent CEO. He
will always influence you. He he is going to still be in charge of Twitter engineering, for one, but when he was a Twitter user and a very important one, and when he was a Twitter investor who's very vocal about what he wanted, So a CEO would have actively be somebody too, so compone the criticism that Twitter receives, such as the aforementioned FTC investigation that's deepening. And then somebody who effectively does masks spitting right. Well, we'll see
who he selects uh and if they get along. It's an ongoing story. Thank you so much Flat for joining his Flat Seve Off Bloomberg's chech editor in Tokyo