4. James Murdoch

Category of Candidate: Characters from Succession.

James Murdoch is the son of Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch. He also sits on Tesla’s board of directors and is supposedly friends with Elon. Back in 2018 there was even heated speculation that Murdoch was in line to replace Musk as chairman of the board at the EV company. So, hey, maybe he has a shot at running Twitter?

Murdoch does have some experience managing media companies with his positions in his dad’s empire and his minority stake in Vice Media. Elon is clearly out of his depth in this business and could use someone who understands advertising.

On the other hand, Rupert Murdoch hates big tech, sees it as a threat to the family business, and failed miserably with his purchase of MySpace. Even if James wanted the job at Twitter, daddy might veto the move.

Murdoch’s life has had a directory toward eventually taking over Fox since the day he was born, but it’s possible he still has ambitions at Tesla as well. Last month, he testified at a trial over Musk’s compensation package and said that the Tesla founder had decided in the “last few months” who will be the next CEO when the day comes. “We’ve had conversations, certainly during the really tough times here,” Murdoch said. “You know, conversations about his exhaustion, about other things like that.” But he insisted that Musk had never explicitly threatened to step down.

There are too many good options for James to burn all his capital as a fall guy at Twitter.