Musk told a Delaware court he wanted to reduce his time managing Twitter and is aiming to find a new leader to run the social media company.

The statement to the court was important because he had been taking the stand to defend his $56 billion Tesla pay package. The lawsuit claims that the package was based on easily achievable targets approved by a compliant board of directors. The fact that he is spending a lot of his time running Twitter into the ground seems to suggest that those taking him to court might be right.

 Tesla investors have been increasingly concerned that Musk is spending too much time running Twitter. But Musk told the court it was only an initial burst of activity needed post-acquisition to reorganise the company.

"But then I expect to reduce my time at Twitter." He admitted allocating Tesla engineers to assess Twitter's engineering teams, but this was on a "voluntary basis" and "after hours."

Musk overpaid for the microblogging platform in late October spending $44 billion.  After firing a huge chunk of staff he told those who remained this week that they would either commit to an "extremely hardcore" Twitter and work "long hours at high intensity" or be paid severance.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was asked if he would accept returning to his old position and he said "Nope."