‘Should I step down?’: Elon Musk polls users on Twitter resignation

The billionaire Tesla founder has abided by previous Twitter polls, and is now putting his own future at the social media platform up to a vote.

After a tumultuous first few weeks, new Twitter chief executive and owner Elon Musk is asking users on the social media platform if he should step down.

The billionaire has abided by previous Twitter polls that asked whether he should reinstate the accounts of suspended journalists, and whether to reinstate former US President Donald Trump, and is now conducting a poll about the future of his own leadership.

“Should I step down as head of Twitter?,” Mr Musk wrote in a tweet on Monday morning.

“I will abide by the results of this poll.”

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

At the time of writing, 55.5 per cent of users had voted for Mr Musk to step down as Twitter CEO, compared with 44.5 per cent of users who had voted against the move.

As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Mr Musk had faced widespread criticism for a major policy change on Monday that banned its users from sharing links to other platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Mastodon. Sharing links to other platforms is common across the social media landscape.

“Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post,” Twitter in a tweet.

A matter of hours later, Mr Musk appeared to backtrack, apologising for the unilateral policy change.

Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

The latest poll caps a rocky period for Twitter and its staff under Mr Musk’s leadership. The executive, who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, took over the social media platform after paying eye-watering $US44bn, and spent his first few days in charge by firing top executives, axing around half of its 7,5000 employees and sent an email to the remaining workers to commit to being “extremely hardcore” or leave the company.

Twitter is also haemorrhaging cash. Mr Musk last week said in a series of tweets that the company was losing more than $US4m a day and had suffered a “massive drop in revenue” as advertisers increasingly flee the platform under his leadership.