Multi-tasker Musk expects to reduce time at Twitter, seek another leader
- Reference: 1668708011
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/11/17/musk_testimony_tesla/
- Source link:
The world’s richest man – who is also CEO at Tesla and SpaceX – made the comments when he testified yesterday during a lawsuit brought by shareholders who claim his $56 billion compensation pack awarded by the electric car company was too high.
The 2018 lawsuit alleges that Musk's time and attention are divided among other ventures, including SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink (which has its own CEO) and now Twitter.
[1]
“There’s an initial burst of activity needed post acquisition to reorganize the company,” [2]Musk said . “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.”
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Immediately ruling himself out was Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and the former CEO at the business. He was asked by a fellow user on Twitter if he’d accept the position and [5]replied “Nope”.
Twitter might not be the only chief exec office that Musk is prepared to vacate. According to the [6]Wall Street Journal , Tesla board member James Murdoch yesterday said during the shareholder lawsuit trial that Musk had previously identified a possible replacement at Tesla but he didn’t name that potential successor.
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Musk had commented at the Tesla annual shareholder meeting in August that he planned to remain at the top of the electric carmaker for as long as he could prove useful.
Running multiple companies seems to be OK for tech bros, but having a job on the side is sometimes frowned upon by the C suite, as was recently demonstrated when a [8]boss fired several engineers for moonlighting .
[9]Twitter refugees seek asylum in an unusual place: The Matt Hancock app
[10]Amazon founder Bezos to donate 'majority' of $126bn fortune
[11]Twitter is suffering from mad bro disease. Open thinking can build it back better
[12]I'm happy paying Twitter eight bucks a month because price isn't the same as value
Twitter has sucked up a lot of Musk’s time, particularly since the deal closed a fortnight ago, and he expects the major restructuring work to be done this week. It has been a period of massive upheaval for the workforce at the social media platform.
Musk announced his arrival by [13]turning up to Twitter HQ with a kitchen sink , he then [14]expunged the CEO, CFO and head of legal council and around [15]half the workforce amid daily losses at Twitter of $4 million.
This week Musk alienated some software engineers after claiming to know the cause of slower Twitter performance in a bunch of countries. One, Eric Frohnhoefer, [16]publicly disagreed and was subsequently laid off . Others followed him out of the door.
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Musk mocked them, [18]saying : “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.”
In yet a further example of the man’s motivational techniques, his [19]Muskness issued an ultimatum days ago telling staff that to realize his vision for Twitter 2.0, they'd need to burn the midnight oil.
“This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” he said. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.” Those willing to sign the pledge have until 5pm Eastern Time today or can leave.
The employees remaining at Twitter could be forgiven for hoping a change in leadership, if not ownership, comes sooner rather than later. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y3a9CNr1O6B47AVSyng@6gAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-says-he-hopes-to-eventually-find-new-twitter-boss-as-he-gives-staff-hardcore-ultimatum-12749042
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y3a9CNr1O6B47AVSyng@6gAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y3a9CNr1O6B47AVSyng@6gAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://twitter.com/jack/status/1593080227563180032?s=20&t=y-aOw5MLn4QBna6X_tXlsQ
[6] https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/elon-musk-to-take-stand-in-trial-over-his-tesla-compensation-package-11668574248
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y3a9CNr1O6B47AVSyng@6gAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/19/overemployment/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/17/twitter_refugees_matt_hancock/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/15/amazon_founder_jeff_bezos_to/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/14/opinion_column_twitter/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/10/twitter_verified_opinion/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/27/musk_sink_twitter/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/28/musk_twitter_takeover/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/04/twitter_layoffs_email/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/14/musk_twitter_rpc_spat/
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y3a9CNr1O6B47AVSyng@6gAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592569305941807104?s=20&t=XLjlUzAwFKnajGxfh0kz5w
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/16/musk_twitter_ultimatum/?td=rt-3a
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: The perfect candidate is....
Unless the second or first law takes precedence.
run Twitter permanently on a full-time basis
omg, is it going to be 9-5 and then nothing?! What time zone?!
Re: run Twitter permanently on a full-time basis
All time zones. It's always between 9-5 somewhere in the world :-p
Remembers, only the most exceptional hardcore staff are welcome through the doors of Twitter nowadays!
Re: run Twitter permanently on a full-time basis
So, the only people left at Twitter are the ones on Work-Release who have no choice?
What do they do?
Being such a basic service; besides the moderators, which is a labour intensive job, what do all these other employees do? I understand that scale implies more people, but still.
This is a genuine question coming from ignorance. I have never been involved in projects with that many users and I am not a twiddler myself. I do understand Microsoft, Google and Apple that actually delivers services and products, but these social media platforms doesn't really seem to provide anything that has any complexity to it. Is it just marketing and engineering how to exploit user data, or am I missing something?
Best of British
With a former British Deputy PM doing sterling work helping Zuckerberg at Meta, Musk could do even better by giving the job to a former British PM.
He's spoilt for choice between Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
After all, if they can run a country and manage a budget of hundreds of billions, a workforce of tens of millions, running Twitter is a walk in the park
where's the sarcasm icon
he expects the major restructuring work to be done this week
The only major restructuring work that can be completed in two weeks tends to involve demolition experts and explosives.
Firing half the staff, then telling those who remain to work twice as many hours isn't really building a new structure, it's just drastically weakening the old one. I'm guessing he's planning to "step away" with just enough time left to let the new manager plausibly take the blame for the failure of the whole venture.
Re: he expects the major restructuring work to be done this week
Careful, it sounds like you're getting dangerously close to exposing his genius, super-secret plan. Thankfully you didn't give the GPS location of his volcano lair, so you'll probably be safe. But I'd get nervous if a black Tesla started following me, if I were you.
It's only
two Score and Four Billion dollars, in other words, chump change. As for those pesky human workers, they could be replaced by the AI modules from Tesla wrecks at a far lower cost.
Puts me in mind...
... of that much-memed scene with the Joker walking away from the building and pressing the button to blow it up without turning around.
Only one icon you can use for this.
80 hour weeks
As he's got so many children anyone would think he'd be promoting family friendly policies.
The perfect candidate is....
one of his Robots. They will carry out every wish of their Master without question.