Elon Musk hopes to become CEO of Twitter by the end of the year

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that he expects to find a CEO for Twitter “probably toward the end of this year.”

During a video call at the World Governance Summit in Dubai, Musk said that ensuring the functionality of the platform remains his top priority.

“I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s financially healthy,” Musk said when asked when he would appoint a CEO. “I think towards the end of the year will be a good time to look for someone else to run the company.”

The 51-year-old Musk initially made his fortune in the financial website PayPal, then founded the space company SpaceX and the electric car manufacturer Tesla. But in recent months, more attention has been focused on the chaos surrounding the $44 billion purchase of microblogging site Twitter.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military is using Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink, to defend against Russia’s ongoing invasion, putting Musk at the center of the war.

Musk offered a wide-ranging 35-minute talk that touched on the billionaire’s fears about artificial intelligence, the collapse of civilization and the possibility of extraterrestrials. But questions about Twitter continued to arise as Musk described how both Tesla and SpaceX could operate without his direct, day-to-day involvement.

“Twitter is still somewhat of an inverted startup,” he said. “There’s still work to be done here to get Twitter into a sort of stable position and really build out the software development engine.”

Musk also tried to portray the takeover of San Francisco-based Twitter as a cultural correction.

“I think the general idea is to reflect the values ​​of the people, as opposed to essentially imposing the values ​​of San Francisco and Berkeley, which are a little niche ideologies compared to the rest of the world,” he said. “And you know, I think Twitter has done a little bit too much to carve out a niche.”

Forbes estimates Musk’s fortune at just under $200 billion. According to an analysis by Forbes, Musk is the second richest man on Earth, behind French luxury brand magnate Bernard Arnault.

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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.