Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest person, has said that he would cut his time at Twitter and ultimately select a new CEO to lead the social media firm, adding that he planned to finish an organizational restructure this week.

Musk made the comments while appearing in a Delaware court on Wednesday, November 16 to defend himself against allegations that his $56 billion compensation package at Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) was based on easy-to-attain performance benchmarks and was authorized by a compliant board of directors.

Tesla investors have become more anxious about Musk's time commitment to turning around Twitter, and the company's stock sank 3% on Wednesday.

"An early surge of activity is required post-acquisition to restructure the organization," Musk said. "However, I intend to spend less time on Twitter."

Musk also confessed that certain Tesla engineers were aiding in the evaluation of Twitter's technical teams, although he said that this was done "voluntarily" and "after hours."

The billionaire's first two weeks as Twitter's owner have been chaotic, as he abruptly ousted the company's former CEO and other top executives and then lay off half of its employees earlier this month.

Musk wrote an email to Twitter staff early Wednesday, informing them they had until Thursday to decide if they wanted to continue at the firm and work "hard hours at high intensity" or accept a three-month severance payment.