Boca Chica, Texas: In a significant twist to the Twitter controversy, Elon Musk tweeted a poll late Sunday asking Twitter users to say whether he should step down as CEO of the social platform he took over this year. Musk has also promised that he will abide by the result.
The poll is open till around 4:30 PM India time, or 3 AM PST. As a result, the result will be known soon.
Musk faced a few tumultuous months as CEO of Twitter, laying off thousands of staff and implementing massive policy changes like the botched rollout of a repurposed Twitter Blue premium subscription plan and reversing bans on multiple controversial personalities and organisations, including former US President Donald Trump.
Earlier, Musk stated that he did not want to serve as CEO of Twitter for long, indicating that he would find someone else for the job. Currently, he is also the CEO of Tesla Inc, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and the Musk Foundation.
In recent times, Musk faced criticism for neglecting his other jobs, particularly from prominent Tesla shareholders. Amid reports of advertisers leaving the platform and a significant drop in revenue, Musk has been focused on generating income but, has said bankruptcy is possible for the social networking platform.
Musk’s tenure as CEO has been contentious, starting with a huge round of layoffs and encouraging more staff to quit or work “extremely hardcore” hours. He has also made fundamental changes to Twitter as a platform and has acted to dismantle much of the platform’s content moderation capabilities in the name of promoting freedom of speech.
He has entered into a feud with Apple CEO Tim Cook about advertising revenue and Apple’s 30 per cent cut of in-app transactions. As for product changes, he has suggested that the character limit for tweets could go up to 4,000, fundamentally changing the purpose of the platform, and has also indicated that all users will be able to edit Tweets after posting them.
Recently, Musk polled Twitter users about whether to reinstate Donald Trump’s suspended account, although it was not clear whether any measures had been taken to prevent vote manipulation.
Most recently, Musk was in the news for suddenly banning the accounts of multiple journalists who cover Twitter, as well as an account that reposts public-domain information about the movements of his private jet after explicitly promising not to. Musk has previously referred to himself as a “free speech absolutist”.
