() — A Twitter poll created by Elon Musk asking if he should “resign as head of Twitter” ended early Monday morning with the majority of respondents voting yes.
Musk had said he would abide by the results of the unscientific poll, which began Sunday night and ended with 57.5% in favor and 42.5% against.
More than 17 million votes were cast in the informal referendum on his chaotic leadership of Twitter, which has been marked by mass layoffs, the replatforming of suspended accounts that had violated Twitter rules, the suspension of journalists covering Twitter and changes in Whiplash policy made and reversed in real time.
Musk did not immediately react to the result of the vote.
Elon Musk tweeted a poll this Sunday night asking people to vote on whether he should step down as CEO of Twitter. Musk said that he would accept the poll result.
Earlier, in several follow-up tweets, Musk had suggested he was serious about leaving and made a vague threat about the future of Twitter if he is ousted.
“As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for as you just might get it,” Musk tweeted.
Since buying Twitter for $44 billion and taking over as CEO in late October, Musk has gone from one controversy to another.
A brief and incomplete summary:
– Musk immediately fired several top executives and about half of Twitter’s staff.
– He then gave the remaining staff an ultimatum that they had to do “extremely hard” work or leave, and a thousand other employees left.
Musk has fired employees who openly disagreed with him and publicly named and shamed former employees who were engaged in difficult moderation discussions as part of the ongoing “Twitter Files.”
– Musk also started, stopped and restarted a verification system that costs $8 for a blue check mark and which initially led to account spoofing.
– Musk has frequently changed Twitter’s rules by executive mandate and without notice, banning access to people who violate the new rules, including several technology journalists and an account that tracked his plane. Musk had once tweeted that allowing the ElonJet account to remain on Twitter demonstrated his commitment to free speech on the platform.
– It has become deeply involved in the culture wars, allowing some of the platform’s permanently banned accounts to work again, including that of former President Donald Trump and many people who had been involved in misinformation, conspiracy theories or hate speech.
Meanwhile, many brands have been removing their advertising from Twitter. Musk has frequently stated that Twitter’s finances are dire.
In response to a tweet on Sunday in which MIT artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman said he would accept the CEO job, Musk hinted that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with his new job.
“You must really like pain,” Musk tweeted, noting that the company “has been on the fast track to bankruptcy since May.”
However, Musk denied that he has a new CEO in mind.
“Nobody wants the job that can keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted. “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”
