Tesla shares spike by 2% as Elon Musk reveals plans to step down as Twitter CEO

Twitter boss Elon Musk teased on Thursday that he has appointed a new CEO for the social networking company, without revealing the name of the mystery woman. "Excited to announce that I’ve a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO (chief technology officer), overseeing product, software & sysops," he tweeted. 

While it is unclear what prompted Musk to give up the top post about seven months after his $44 billion acquisition, speculations suggest that it could be because the billionaire wishes to shift his focus towards Tesla and SpaceX, his two other business pursuits. 

Soon after his big announcement on Thursday, his automotive company observed a 2% jump in shares, hinting at the fact that investors were in favour of the move. Earlier in April, Tesla shareholders had voiced their concerns over Musk's growing focus on Twitter. In a letter, they said that they were "increasingly concerned with governance and leadership issues at the company."

Linda Yaccarino in talks to become new Twitter CEO 

While Musk conveniently left out the name of his new replacement, reports suggest that NBCUniversal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino could jump ships and take over the new role, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. 

But with a new CEO, Twitter is also welcoming a whole lot of new features. Recently, it rolled out encrypted messaging, allowing users to exchange texts more securely. But as the company announced its launch, Musk cautioned via a tweet: “Try it, but don’t trust it yet."