Elon Musk appeared to put his future as Twitter CEO on the line when he published a poll asking whether he should resign and promised to respect the results.
He asked his followers on Twitter, “Should I step down as head of Twitter?”
“I will abide by the results of this poll.”
About 56.7% of the almost 14 million voters had already said yes with four hours left in the polls on Monday.
Musk stated to his followers on Twitter that he does not have a substitute candidate in mind now.
“No one wants the job who can keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” he said.
Lex Fridman, a research scientist at MIT, made a “fun suggestion” to Musk by offering to manage the platform for free temporarily.
Musk responded pessimistically, claiming Twitter was “in the fast lane to bankruptcy.”
“You must like pain a lot. One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter, and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Still want the job?” Musk asked.
Soon after seemingly realising he had made a mistake by prohibiting Twitter users from marketing their accounts on competing social media networks, the unpredictable billionaire tweeted the poll.
“Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again,” he tweeted.
Since Musk acquired control of the firm in October, he has made several controversial adjustments. This most recent rule modification is just the latest in a string of events that have caused many users to direct their following elsewhere.
Twitter stated that it would “no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms.”
This means that users can no longer make statements like “Follow me @username on Instagram,” as Twitter explained.
Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, tweeted his confusion about the change in policy with a simple question: “Why?”
Musk tweeted that the policy will be confined to “suspending accounts only when that account’s *primary* purpose is the promotion of competitors” after several prominent accounts were suspended under the new policy, including that of tech investor Paul Graham.
During Musk’s brief time at Twitter’s helm, the company has experienced several scandals, including firing employees, reinstating some far-right accounts, and suspension of many journalists.
Soon after assuming control, he stated that verified accounts on the site would cost $8 per month, but Twitter Blue was temporarily put on hold due to an embarrassing surge in phoney profiles. In recent years, it has undergone a revamp.
Musk claimed that Twitter was losing $4 million per day on November 4; that same day, the business fired half of its 7,500 employees.
Musk also announced that former president Donald Trump’s account would be brought back online and that Twitter would stop trying to counteract falsehoods spread by the Covid-19 virus.
After alleging that journalists had revealed information about the whereabouts of his private jet that could put his family at risk, he recently suspended the accounts of many journalists, the most recent being Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz.
There has been widespread outrage at the suspension of the journalists, including those from CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, as well as the European Union and the United Nations.
The Federal Trade Commission of the United States has expressed “deep concern” over what’s happening on Twitter.
Sally Buzbee, an executive editor of the Washington Post, claimed that Lorenz’s suspension “further undermines Elon Musk’s claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech.”
Some of the inactive profiles have been restored.