Over 10 million Twitter users have voted in support of Elon Musk’s stepping down as the CEO of the social media company. This was the result of the poll conducted by Elon Musk himself via Twitter. Just like he did with some of the decisions he has made since taking over Twitter, Musk in a Twitter poll created on Sunday asked if he should step down as the CEO and promised to abide by the result of the poll. It’s not quite clear what that plan is exactly, but Butcher notes that Musk issued the Tweet after landing in Qatar for the World Cup final. He says Musk “most certainly” had talks with investors, given he has backers in the region who helped him take over Twitter in the first place.
"Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll," Musk tweeted out Sunday as he continued to face mounting scrutiny over his time at the helm of the site.
The results: By Monday afternoon when the poll ended, 17.5 million users had voted with 57.5%, representing over 10 million users voting ‘Yes’, while 42.5% were against the idea of Musk stepping down. It is, however, unclear as of publication time, if Musk will stay true to his promise of abiding by the results of the poll and when that will be.
The poll came as Musk faced growing criticism after Twitter briefly banned users from promoting accounts on other social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social before the prohibition vanished from its policy page. The restrictive policy had come after after many users started posting links to other social media accounts as they looked to depart Twitter following Musk’s Oct. 27 takeover, which has since seen the reinstatement of some far-right accounts, the suspension of journalists and mass layoffs.
Musk’s policy issues: The poll followed online backlash after Musk made sudden changes to policies impacting users of Twitter in the last week. The company, for instance, introduced a new social media platform promotion policy on Sunday, which prohibited users from sharing links to some of their other social media accounts. Twitter, however, later deleted the clause from its policy after criticisms.
- * Earlier, Twitter also made changes to its policy on “doxxing,” which the company now defines as “sharing someone’s private information online without their permission.”
- * The new policy prohibits users from sharing other people’s live location information, home addresses, contact information or physical location information but has left many confused over what information crosses Twitter’s line.
- * Musk’s policy changes were used as a justification to suspend the Twitter accounts of a number of U.S.-based journalists, commentators, and others who were critical of the CEO or his companies in the past. Some of the accounts were fully or partially restored a few days later, but not all.
