Elon Musk could step down as CEO of Twitter today and asks Twitter users to vote on his future

Elon Musk tweeted a poll asking Twitter users to decide whether or not he should step down as CEO, and vowed he would respect the outcome. The poll is open until around 4:30 p.m. India time or 3:00 a.m. PST, so the result will be known soon. Musk had a tumultuous few months as CEO, laying off thousands of Twitter employees and implementing massive policy changes such as the botched rollout of a repurposed Twitter Blue premium subscription plan and the rollback of bans. of several controversial figures and organizations, including former US President Donald Trump.

Should I leave the head of Twitter? I will stick to the results of this survey.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Musk has previously said he doesn’t want to stay on as CEO of Twitter for long, indicating he will find someone else for the job. He is currently CEO of Tesla Inc, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink and the Musk Foundation. He has recently been criticized for neglecting his other jobs, particularly by prominent Tesla shareholders. Amid reports of advertisers leaving the platform and a significant drop in revenue, Musk focused on generating revenue but said bankruptcy was possible for the social networking platform.

His tenure as CEO has been contentious, starting with a huge round of layoffs and encouraging more staff to quit or work “extremely hard” hours. He also made fundamental changes to Twitter as a platform and acted to dismantle much of the platform’s content moderation capabilities in the name of promoting free speech. He argued with Apple CEO Tim Cook over ad revenue and Apple’s 30% cut in in-app transactions. Regarding product edits, he suggested that the character limit for Tweets could be up to 4,000, fundamentally changing the platform’s focus, and also indicated that all users will be able to edit Tweets after have published them.

Musk recently quizzed Twitter users on whether to reinstate Donald Trump’s suspended account, though it’s unclear if any steps have been taken to prevent vote manipulation. It came after a promise to only make decisions about content moderation and account reinstatements through a “Content Moderation Board with widely diverse viewpoints”. However, Musk later told company employees that the proposed board would only be “advisory” and that he would be the final arbiter of all such decisions anyway. It’s unclear if such a council was ever created, and in the meantime, Twitter’s existing Trust and Safety Council has also since disbanded.

More recently, Musk made headlines for suddenly banning the accounts of several journalists who cover Twitter, as well as an account that reposts public domain information about the movements of his private jet after he explicitly promised not to. To do. Musk has previously called himself a “free speech absolutist.”