Who will be the next Twitter CEO? Here is a list of potential candidates

Elon Musk and his $44 billion Twitter takeover have been in the news almost every day for the better of the year. However, a recent plot twist has got us all glued to news headlines more closely than ever and that may be Musk's exit as the top boss of the social media platform.

Elon-gate

Musk has repeatedly requested the media in the past to address any row related to him as the Elon-gate. And this Elon-gate is actually Musk-xit from the social media platform.

I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022

Ever since he announced that he will be resigning from his CEO job, many have reached out to Musk offering to take over, some even for free.

1. Lex Fridman

Fridman, a Russian-American computer scientist and artificial intelligence researcher who also runs a podcast, was quick to offer his resources to Musk.

He tweeted asking if he could run Twitter without any salary in return.

You must like pain a lot. One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Still want the job?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Musk, in response to this 'fun suggestion,' pointed out that to run a company like Twitter one has to put in all their life savings and even called it painful as it's headed towards bankruptcy.

Musk's words of caution do not seem to have broken Fridman's spirit to run the company as he thinks he would be able to make a significant change. In response to Musk's words of caution, he replied: "Yes. We'll turn it around."

Another well-known name to through his hat in the ring is the world's most subscribed YouTuber Mr. Beast.

This YouTuber asked Musk if he could become the new CEO.

It’s not out of the question

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2022

2. Mr. Beast

Mr. Beast is Jimmy Donaldson, a 24 American who runs five YouTube channels — MrBeast (his main channel), Beast Philanthropy, MrBeast 2, MrBeast Gaming, and Beast Reacts.

He was born on May 7, 1998, in eastern North Carolina in the city of Greenville, United States. He attended East Carolina University, but only for a brief period of time as he dropped out shortly after.

He launched his YouTube channel in 2017 and ever since has been making bizarre videos. His videos are primarily about expensive stunts, survival challenges, vlogs, and luxurious getaways.

He has posted videos of himself challenging others to “sit in a bathtub of snakes”, created real-life sets of Squid Game, and has gone around recording himself offering people $100,000 to quit their jobs.

One of his videos, “I Survived a Plane Crash”, shared two months ago, has over 65 million views. Another one of his popular videos is titled, “I Spent 50 hours Buried Alive,” which has about 205 million views.

Earlier this year, he surpassed 100 million subscribers on his main channel and became the second person to have achieved this milestone, after PewDiePie.

Mr. Beast has already come up with his first order of business if he is made the CEO of Twitter.

He tweeted, "My first order of business, make it where creators actually want to post videos on Twitter and not just link to other platforms." And, Musk seemed to agree too.

Couldn’t agree more!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 23, 2022

3. Sriram Krishnan

Krishnan worked at Twitter from 2017 to 2019 but made a comeback when Musk completed his takeover. He has been one of Musk’s key lieutenants in the Twitter takeover, alongside investors David Sacks and Jason Calacanis and Musk’s personal lawyer, Alex Spiro.

He announced his appointment on Twitter, causing a stir on the internet.

Now that the word is out: I’m helping out @elonmusk with Twitter temporarily with some other great people.

I ( and a16z) believe this is a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen. pic.twitter.com/weGwEp8oga

— Sriram Krishnan - sriramk.eth (@sriramk) October 30, 2022

 

Who is Sriram Krishnan?

Krishnan started working with Microsoft in 2007 as a program manager for Visual Studio. He later moved to Facebook where he helped build the Facebook Audience Network, a competitive platform to Google’s ad technologies. He also worked with Snapchat where he built the social media platform’s ad tech platform shortly before the company’s IPO.

After serving at some of the top silicon valley companies, Krishnan moved to Twitter where he served as senior director of product and contributed to the core user experience, and launched a redesigned home page and events experience.

Krishnan has an edge over other Musk's soldiers as he is the only one who has worked at Twitter firsthand before the takeover.

In the early part of 2021. Krishnan and his wife, Aarthi Ramamurthy, launched a Clubhouse talk show that focused on organic conversations on start-ups, venture capitalism, and cryptocurrencies. The show featured prominent guests like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tony Hawk, Diane von Furstenberg, Kanye West, and social media influencer MrBeast.

Other popular names that could be considered are 

4. Sheryl Sandberg

Sandberg served as chief operating officer (COO) of Meta Platforms, a position from which she stepped down in August 2022. She is also the founder of LeanIn.Org. In 2008, she was made COO at Facebook, becoming the company's second-highest ranking official.

5. Mike Schroepfer
 

Mike Schroepfer is an entrepreneur, technical architect and manager who was the chief technology officer (CTO) at Meta Platforms between March 2013 and March 2022.Jason Calacanis, entrepreneur, and investor

6. David Sacks

David Sacks is a South African American entrepreneur, author, and investor in internet technology firms. Sacks was the founding COO and product leader of PayPal and the founder and CEO of Yammer. In 2017, Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. His angel investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and Airbnb
 

Meanwhile, Musk has been trying to change the face of Twitter as a platform and as a corporation. He embarked upon mass layoffs and recently also announced changes in the user interface of the social media platform.

In a Twitter spaces conversation, Musk described Twitter," as a company which is like a plane that headed straight to the ground with its engines on fire."

Read: 'Twitter is like a plane...with its engines on fire': Musk reveals company has just $1 billion in cash