Elon Musk has hinted at ending his run as Chief Executive Officer of Twitter.
In a Twitter poll that has garnered about 17 million votes, Elon Musk asked his followers if he should step down as the head of Twitter.
According to him, he is ready to abide by the results of the poll.
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
The poll closed Monday morning with a majority of respondents (57%) calling for the billionaire to leave his post.
Musk’s Sunday poll followed online backlash after the “Chief Twit” (as he has called himself) made sudden changes to policies impacting users of Twitter in the last week.
After haphazardly establishing a ban on links out that put his site at odds with both The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz and his own supporters, like Silicon Valley venture capitalist Paul Graham. , Elon Musk’s doxxing, banning, and moderation outburst ended — predictably — with an apology and a promise it “won’t happen again.”
His $44 billion takeover of the company — that he tried desperately and unsuccessfully to get out of — started with a poll, and it would be both appropriate and timely if his time as its CEO ended the same way.
Even before Musk owned the company, there were reports that he planned to operate as Twitter’s CEO only temporarily, and just one month ago, he said under oath that he planned to find someone else to run the company. In follow-up tweets, Musk claimed the company “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May” (not the first time he’s used the b-word in reference to Twitter, he mentioned it in a company meeting last month) and said, “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”
Now, with his decision-making under fire from the same people who had been his supporters and his handpicked #TwitterFiles journalist ghosting his pleas for a public response, Musk may be ready to put his overpriced toy in someone else’s hands for a little while.
Story by Kwabena Boateng Asiedu | Univers.ug.edu.gh
