Indian Origin Man, Email Inventor Asks Elon Musk For Twitter CEO Job

Two weeks ago, Elon Musk conducted a poll on Twitter asking users if he should resign as CEO. As the poll showed that 57.5% of those who participated wanted Musk to step down, the Twitter chief decided to actively search for a new CEO for the platform.

Among many others who have applied for the job, the one application that stood out was that of Shiva Ayyadurai. The Indian-origin MIT scholar and self-proclaimed inventor of email, has applied for the position through a tweet directed at Elon Musk. 

In the tweet, Ayyadurai mentions that he holds four degrees from MIT and has founded seven high-tech software companies. He signed the post identifying himself as the inventor of the protocol that is ‘email’ when he was a teenager.

Ayyadurai, the Indian-origin scholar and entrepreneur, is famous for his work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ayyadurai has four degrees from MIT, including a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science and a PhD in biological engineering.

In addition to his academic pursuits, Ayyadurai is also an experienced entrepreneur and has founded several high-tech software companies, he claims. 

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With his tweet-resume, Ayyadurai also attached a clip of an interview with CBS News correspondent Mo Rocca and stated, “Thanks for your support on my recent tweet [Elon Musk], re: the CEO position [at] Twitter. I believe anyone wanting this role must be fully transparent and publicly post their qualifications. My experience began when I invented email at age 14, long before I earned four degrees from MIT.”

That is, he is perhaps most famously known for his claim to have invented email while working as a research assistant at MIT in the 1980s. This claim has been disputed by some, in favour of Ray Tomlinson. For context, many have opined that perhaps the invention was mutually exclusive.

But, Ayyadurai has received recognition for his contributions to the field of computer science and technology.

In recent years, Ayyadurai has been active on social media and has used platforms such as Twitter to advocate for various causes and share thoughts on a range of topics. He has gained notoriety for disseminating conspiracy theories, espousing pseudoscientific beliefs and making unverified medical assertions. 

He has also run for political office in the past, including a campaign for the United States Senate in Massachusetts in 2018.

But Ayyadurai is not alone. Previously, YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr Beast, has also applied for the post. Rapper Snoop Dog also showed interest in the job (and in Musk’s rule, it could be possible).

According to several other media outlets, Sheryl Sandberg (former COO of Facebook), Mike Schroepfer (former Facebook CTO), artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman, Sriram Krishnan (partner at Andreessen Horowitz, former team lead at Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo!, Facebook, and Snap), investors David Sacks and Jason Calacanis are the forerunners.

Musk has stated that he would resign as Twitter CEO to focus on ‘servers and softwares’ as soon as he finds someone ‘foolish enough to take the job’.