Elon Musk says he expects to find a new Twitter CEO ‘over time’

Elon Musk said Twitter will be much more engineering-driven, with employees who write “great code” comprising the majority of the team

Billionaire Elon Musk, who just took over as the chief executive at Twitter after buying the company, said he does not want to be the CEO of any company.

Mr. Musk took the witness stand on Wednesday in a Delaware court to defend himself in a shareholder lawsuit challenging a compensation package he was awarded by the Tesla's board of directors that is potentially worth more than $55 billion.

While testifying, Mr. Musk said “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time,” according to multiple media reports.

Mr. Musk said Twitter is a software and servers company at its heart and has asked employees to decide by Thursday evening if they want to remain a part of the business, according to an email sent by the company's new owner to its remaining staff.

Mr. Musk wrote that employees “will need to be extremely hardcore" to build “a breakthrough Twitter 2.0" and that long hours at high intensity will be needed for success.

Mr. Musk, who also heads Tesla and SpaceX, said Twitter will be much more engineering-driven, with employees who write “great code” comprising the majority of the team.

The billionaire, who completed the $44 billion takeover of the San Francisco company in late October, fired much of its full-time workforce by email early this month and is expected to eliminate an untold number of contract jobs for those responsible for fighting misinformation and other harmful content.