Elon Musk has stated that he will abide by the verdict of a poll that he conducted among users of Twitter, in which he asked participants to vote on whether or not they wanted him to step down as the CEO of the social media network.
“Should I resign from my position as CEO of Twitter?” I will not dispute the findings of this poll in any way, as Musk sent out a tweet on Sunday. He continues to be the subject of increasing scrutiny regarding his time at the helm of the site.
More than 17.5 million people participated in the poll, and the results showed that 57.5% of respondents supported the idea that the Twitter CEO should step down, while 42.5% opposed the idea. The poll was closed at approximately 6:20 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
As of the early hours of Monday morning, Musk has not provided a response to the findings of the poll. Late on Sunday night, he posted a tweet in which he said, “As the proverb goes, be cautious what you want, as you might get it.” Musk has stated in the past that he intends to eventually stand down as CEO of Twitter and to find someone else to lead the company over time. He also plans to find a replacement for himself.
The poll was conducted at the same time that Musk was under growing criticism when Twitter briefly restricted users from advertising accounts on other social networking sites, including Facebook, Instagram, and Truth Social, before the rule was removed from its policy page.
Following Musk’s takeover of Twitter on October 27, which has since resulted in the reinstatement of some far-right accounts, the suspension of journalists, and mass layoffs, the restrictive policy was implemented after many users began posting links to other social media accounts as they looked to leave Twitter. This was done as they considered leaving the platform.
On Sunday, the Twitter support team posted a message that read, “We know that many of our users are engaged on other social networking networks.” On the other hand, we will no longer permit the free marketing of some social media platforms on Twitter.
Musk attempted to contradict the policy after receiving massive criticism in response to the news. He stated, “Casually sharing occasional links is acceptable, but no more persistent promotion of competitors for free, which is ludicrous in the extreme.”
By Sunday evening, the page on the platform that included the revised policy text had been replaced with a 404 error heading that said “page not found,” indicating that the information had been removed or transferred. In addition, references to the ban on outside social media were removed from the stream that Twitter Support maintains on Sunday night without any explanation being provided.
Given that the CEO of the company had previously pledged to be an “absolute free speech absolutist,” many people found it humorous that he would implement such an absurd policy. Because it was met with such quick condemnation, including from individuals who had previously defended Musk’s leadership, the billionaire promised that he would not make any more policy changes before conducting an online survey of Twitter users.
“My apologies. never going to take place again,” he tweeted just before he launched his new poll asking whether or not he should resign from his position.
Twitter has recently come under fire for a number of issues, including huge layoffs, a botched attempt to implement paid verification for users, and, more recently, the suspension of a half dozen or so journalists. Twitter users voted in favor of restoring their accounts in an earlier poll that was issued by Musk, which resulted in the accounts being restored.