Elon Musk hires female boss to run Twitter

Elon Musk has hired an unnamed woman to replace him as chief executive of Twitter.

The billionaire’s announcement in a tweet on Thursday comes after his claims that he plans to step back from the social media platform, which he bought for $44bn last year.

The multi-billionaire wrote on Twitter: “Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!

“My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.”

X is the name of what Mr Musk has referred to as “the everything app” that envisions as the future of Twitter.

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In March, Mr Musk told the World Government Summit in Dubai that he would hand over control of Twitter towards the end of 2023 once the business became more financially stable.

He said: “I need to stabilise the organisation and just make sure it’s in a financially healthy place and the product road map is clearly laid out.”

Last December, Mr Musk lost an online poll of millions of Twitter users over whether he should step down, after promising to quit if the result went against him.

The entrepreneur, who also remains chief executive of Tesla, has been heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of Twitter since its takeover.

This includes overseeing the rollout of its subscription service Twitter Blue, which costs £8 per month.

The monthly fee allows users to verify their account and access other premium features, such voting in polls, post longer tweets and see fewer adverts.

Last month, Twitter stripped blue ticks from thousands of celebrities, journalists and organisations who failed to pay for the Twitter Blue, only to backtrack shortly after.

Efforts to place more of Twitter behind a paywall is part of Mr Musk’s attempts to boost subscriber numbers as advertiser interest in the platform wanes.

The world’s second richest man has warned staff that Twitter faced bankruptcy, previously claiming that the business had just four months of cash left to survive when he acquired it in October 2022.

Since his takeover, Mr Musk has fired more than half of Twitter’s workforce in a bid to drastically reduce costs.