Elon Musk may be stepping down as Twitter’s CEO after mere weeks on the job, if he really plans to follow the the results of a poll he posted Sunday evening.
“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” Musk tweeted Sunday evening, giving users a yes and no option. In a series of follow-up tweets, Musk claimed that he was serious about stepping down.
“As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it,” he tweeted.
As of Monday morning, 57.5% of users voted “yes,” while 42.5% voted “no.” More than 17 million users had voted by the time the poll closed.
In a Delaware courtroom in November, Musk said, “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.” At the time, he was defending himself in a shareholder lawsuit challenging a compensation package he was awarded by Tesla’s board of directors.
However, on Sunday, he tweeted “there is no successor” for him at the company.
“The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive,” he tweeted.
Musk posted the poll just hours after announcing a new, restrictive policy that prohibits the “free promotion” of social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, and Post, to name a few. Many users came after the billionaire, accusing him of censorship, though Musk claims to be a “free speech absolutist.”
After facing widespread backlash, Musk appeared to backtrack, saying: “Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extreme.”
Musk’s Twitter takeover has also involved the reinstatement of several far-right accounts, mass layoffs, and the suspension of half a dozen journalists, particularly those who cover him and Twitter.