Twitter poll: Users vote for Elon Musk to step down as CEO

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Twitter users voted on a poll Monday voted for Elon Musk to step down as the company’s CEO.
• On Sunday, Musk posted a yes-or-no poll on Twitter asking “Should I step down as head of Twitter?
• Musk promised to abide by the results of his poll.

Will Elon Musk step down as Twitter’s chief?

The social media company’s new owner posted a yes-or-no poll on the platform asking whether he should step down as Twitter’s chief. More than half of the responders voted in favor of Musk stepping down.

On Monday morning, results showed 57.5% — around 10 million Twitter users want Musk to resign. A total of 17.5 million people voted.

Musk tweeted on Sunday: “Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.”

In a follow-up tweet, Musk wrote “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”

“Those who want power are the ones who least deserve it.”

Several people urged Musk to stay as Twitter’s head, including Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao who posted “Stay the course” minutes before the poll closed. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also persuaded Musk not to step down.

Musk has been posting polls on various issues since acquiring Twitter in October. He also asked users whether to reinstate the account of former president Donald Trump.

Musk has posted the mantra “vox populi, vox dei” — a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God” to justify his actions.

However, the CEO hasn’t acted on the results of all of his polls. His critics even used the “vox populi” phrase to accuse him of being a hypocrite for not following Twitter users who voted in favor of Musk reinstating accounts he said had “doxxed my exact location in real-time.”

Musk has not lifted the suspension of @ElonJet, an account that published publicly-available information on the whereabouts of Musk’s private jet. Jack Sweeney, the account’s owner, remain suspended from the platform.

Some of Musk’s supporters lauded him for vowing to promote free speech and change Twitter’s content-moderation policies. However, others cited concerns of a surge in hate speech on the platform and have questioned Musk’s hypocrisy in suspending accounts of journalists critical of him.

More and more advertisers are leaving Twitter over concerns about content moderation. Musk has also been known to create new policies on a whim, some of which he later reversed. Shortly after acquiring the company, Musk fired top executives at Twitter and thousands of staff members.

Last month, Twitter faced a mass resignation from employees who refused to work under Musk’s new policies, prompting the company to shut down its offices.

Source: Associated Press