Elon Musk's Twitter: Could Jared Kushner take over social media platform after CEO announces he would resign?

Elon Musk has announced he will resign from his position as CEO on Twitter as soon as he can find someone ‘foolish enough’ to take over.

The Tesla boss bought the social media application in October 2022 for $44 billion and in the months with Elon at the helm, the company has been in decline - both in popularity and in funds.

Controversial decisions such as firing up to 75% of his staff, placing a subscription fee on the app’s blue ticks and dissolving the Trust and Safety Council have led to more than a million users leaving the platform and Twitter facing a mountain of debt.

The Twitter CEO also admitted to suspending or removing accounts that had posted links to his competitor Mastodon - an open-source platform that has been gaining followers since Elon's Twitter takeover; and has since confessed that this particular reaction was a 'mistake'.

On December 18, Elon Musk tweeted a poll asking the app’s remaining users and his 122.4 million followers, whether he should step down and suggested he would ‘abide by the results’.

Over 17 million people responded to Elon’s poll with a 57.5% response rate asking the CEO to leave the post.

As he promised, Elon then tweeted early this morning [21 December]: “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 and servers team.”

The question then remains…who is ‘foolish’ enough to take on Elon’s short-lived position as CEO?

Maybe not foolish, but certainly a potential successor that came up in online conversation was Donald Trump’s former senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is a proficient investor and businessman.

Prior to working in politics, Jared has run his family real estate business Kushner Companies, as well as acquiring Observer Media and setting up several online businesses, resulting in a net worth of around $800 million.

The New Jersey native has a close relationship with the Saudi Royal family, a key investor in Twitter, and seemingly has a relationship with Elon Musk, after the pair were seen together in Qatar for the World Cup final.

His background here has pointed news outlets to see him as Musk's potential successor at Twitter.

Other evidence suggesting Jared and Elon may have a close relationship is the link with Jared’s wife Ivanka Trump (the daughter of Donald Trump), who has posted several times about the Tesla boss.

For example, in 2015 Ivanka posted a picture to Facebook with the caption: “Last night I met one of my idols. Elon Musk - is brilliant - an innovator in every sense of the word. If you haven’t listened to his TED talks you should do it today.”

Jared married Ivanka in 2009 and the pair worked for Donald Trump when he was serving as the 45th President of the United States.