Twitter Users Vote For Musk To Step Down

Matthew Broersma,
Twitter and other social media apps on a screen

Elon Musk polls Twitter users over whether he should step down as chief executive, amidst controversy and plummeting Tesla shares

Twitter users have voted for Elon Musk to step down as chief executive of the company, after Musk said he would “abide” by the results of the poll.

Just over 57 percent of users voted in favour of Musk stepping down as chief executive, with about 17.5 million users voting.

“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” Musk wrote.

An industry analyst said the poll, launched on Sunday, was a sign that Musk may be preparing to step down as head of the company due to the “weakness” of Tesla shares, which have fallen more than 62 percent this year.

elon musk, tesla, spacex
Image credit: SpaceX

‘Black eye’

Dan Ives told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday morning that the past few weeks since Musk took over Twitter have been a “black eye” for him and for Tesla, which he called Musk’s “golden child”, making up more than 90 percent ofhis wealth.

“And that’s why I think the writing’s on the wall, and I think ultimately in the next 24 hours, Musk will probably name a temporary CEO of Twitter,” Ives said.

He said the “pressure was building” and that Musk could be out as Twitter chief in the next five or six hours.

Musk told a user on Twitter shortly after the poll began that he had “no successor” already in mind.

Controversy

The entrepreneur took over Twitter in late October after a legal battle, and has since made controversial moves such as firing its executive team and about half its employees.

Most recently Musk suspended several journalists who had covered the platform over allegedly sharing his location information, before reinstating the accounts.

The UN and the EU had criticised Musk over the latter move, with the EU threatening sanctions.

On Sunday Twitter said it would remove accounts that offered “free promotion of certain social media platforms”, with some accounts apparently being suspended for linking to accounts on other sites.

‘Promotion of competitors’

Musk later said the policy would affect accounts whose “primary purpose is promotion of competitors”.

Twitter had named Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post as being affected by the rule, but TikTok was not on the list.

Former Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, who recently invested in Nostr, posted that the ban “doesn’t make sense”.