More than half of the 17.5 million users who responded to a Twitter poll asking whether billionaire Elon Musk should step down as head of the social media platform voted Yes when the poll closed on Monday .
There was no immediate announcement from Twitter, or Musk, about whether that would happen, though he said he would respect the results. The results of the unscientific online poll, which took 12 hours, showed that 57.5 percent of those who voted wanted him to go.
Musk’s promise to let users decide his future role at Twitter seemed to come out of nowhere on Sunday, although he had also promised in November that a reorganization would happen soon. Musk also acknowledged on Sunday that he made a mistake in rolling out new speech restrictions that banned mentions of rival social media websites.
On Sunday, publicly joking with Twitter followers, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO, saying that person “must really like pain” to lead a company that “has been in the fast track to bankruptcy.”
“No one wants the job that can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted.
Blocking links to other platforms
In another major policy change, Twitter had announced that users will no longer be able to link to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and other platforms that the company described as “forbidden”.
But that decision drew so much immediate criticism, including from former supporters of Twitter’s new billionaire owner, that Musk vowed not to make any major policy changes without an online survey of users.
The move to block competitors was Musk’s latest attempt to clamp down on certain speech after he last week shut down a Twitter account that tracked the flights of his private jet.
Banned platforms included major websites like Facebook and Instagram, and former President Donald Trump’s initial rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and Truth Social. Twitter gave no explanation as to why the blacklist included these seven websites, but not others such as Onlyfans, Weibo, TikTok or LinkedIn, as well as platforms favored by conservatives such as Gab, Gettr and Parler.
Elon Musk, center, is seen at the FIFA World Cup finals in Lusail City, Qatar on Sunday, sitting next to former White House adviser Jared Kushner, left. (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
Twitter had said it would at least temporarily suspend accounts that list the banned websites in their profile, a practice so widespread that it would have been difficult to enforce the restrictions on Twitter’s millions of users worldwide. Not just links, but attempts to bypass the ban by typing “instagram dot com” could have resulted in a suspension, the company said.
One test case was prominent venture capitalist Paul Graham, who has praised Musk in the past but told his 1.5 million Twitter followers on Sunday that this was the “last straw” and to find him at Mastodon . His Twitter account was quickly suspended and soon restored as Musk promised to reverse the policy implemented just hours earlier.
Musk said Twitter will still suspend some accounts under the policy, but “only when the *primary* purpose of that account is to promote competitors.”
Mastodon has grown rapidly in recent weeks as an alternative for Twitter users unhappy with Musk’s overhaul of Twitter since he bought the company for $44 billion in late October and began restoring accounts that violated Twitter’s previous leadership’s rules against hateful conduct and other harm.
Week of new controversial edicts
Musk last week also took aim at journalists writing about the plane-tracking account, which can still be found on other social media sites, claiming they were broadcasting “basically murder coordinates.”
He used it to justify Twitter’s moves last week to suspend the accounts of numerous journalists who cover the social media platform and Musk, including reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other publications. Many of these accounts were restored after an online survey by Musk.
Front Burner22:24The culture war on Elon Musk’s Twitter
Then, over the weekend, The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz became the latest reporter to be temporarily banned. She said she was suspended after she posted a message on Twitter tagging Musk and requesting an interview.
Sally Buzbee, the Washington Post’s executive editor, called it “an arbitrary suspension of another Post reporter” that further undermined Musk’s promise to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech.
Musk, 51, was questioned in court on November 16 about how he divides his time between Tesla and his other companies, including SpaceX and Twitter. Musk had to testify in Delaware Court of Chancery over a shareholder challenge to Musk’s potential $55 billion compensation plan as CEO of the electric car company.
Musk said he never intended to be Tesla’s CEO, nor did he want to be a CEO of any other company, preferring to see himself as an engineer.
Tesla shares have already lost nearly 60 percent of their value this year as, like other automakers, it struggles with supply chain issues and growing competition in the electric vehicle space.
Tesla shares jumped in pre-market trading when Musk’s Twitter poll results came in, but gave up most of their gains.