Elon Musk Asks the Audience, and They Tell Him to Step Down as Head of Twitter
After a tumultuous weekend, Elon Musk asked Twitter if he should step down as head of the social network and 57.5% of the 17.5 million accounts that voted in his poll said he should go.
By Stephanie Mlot
Elon Musk on Sunday publicly polled Twitter users about whether he should step down as head of the social network, and the people have spoken: 57.5% of the 17.5 million accounts that cast votes in his poll said yes, Musk should no longer be in charge of Twitter.
In posting the query, Musk said he would “abide by the results of this poll.” He has yet to weigh in on the results this morning. Last night, as the vote leaned toward the “yes” votes, he posted: “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”
Some speculated the poll is just a ruse and Musk has already selected a new CEO, as he said he would. The fickle billionaire, however, went on to tweet that “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.”
The company, which no longer has a communications department after mass layoffs and terminations over the last two months, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since Musk took over in late October as “Chief Twit,” not a day has gone by without Twitter making headlines-whether the CEO is laying off and rehiring staff, rolling out then immediately killing features, or banning and reinstating accounts.
The poll about his future at Twitter came after a tumultuous day that started with the company rolling out a puzzling ban on linking to rival social networks. The policy was announced during the World Cup final (at which Musk was in attendance), but amid pushback from all sides, Twitter backtracked, deleting tweets and a web page about the ban by day’s end.
The company is now running its own poll about whether it should implement the linking ban. With 12 hours left, 87% of the almost 250,000 accounts that have voted say no.
The confusion around that rollout, coupled with questionable bans on journalists this week, perhaps contributed to those “yes” votes on Musk’s “should I stay or should I go” poll. One has to imagine that with a full communications team in place, the weekend may have gone differently.
Musk apologized for that rollout and said: “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”
These Twitter polls appear to be Musk’s preferred way to make decisions; he did the same when deciding whether or not to reinstate former President Trump’s account. But these polls are easily manipulated, of course. If you have more than one account, you can jump between them and vote multiple times. Bot and spam accounts can certainly get in on the action, too.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
