Elon Musk Asks Twitter Poll if He Should Stay as Boss
Twitter’s owner Elon Musk is asking users of the social media platform to vote on his future as its chief executive.
In a poll to his 122 million followers, he tweeted: “Should I step down as head… I will abide by the results.”
The technology tycoon, who also runs Tesla and Space X, has faced much criticism since taking over Twitter.
After a legal battle, Musk took control of the company in October in a $44bn ($36bn) deal.
At 07:00 GMT on Monday, more than 13 million people had voted in his poll and 57% had said yes to Mr Musk stepping down.
Dan Ives, senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, told the BBC he believed the vote would “ultimately” lead to the “ending of Musk’s reign as chief executive of Twitter”.
There has been a flurry of controversial changes at Twitter since Mr Musk bought the social media site in October.
He has fired about half of its staff and attempted a rollout of Twitter’s paid-for verification feature before putting it on pause. The feature was relaunched last week.
He has also been criticised for his approach to content moderation, with some civil liberties groups accusing him of taking steps that will increase hate speech and misinformation.
On Friday, Mr Musk was condemned by the United Nations and European Union over Twitter’s decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media firm.
The UN tweeted that media freedom is “not a toy”, while the EU threatened Twitter with sanctions.
‘Circus show’
Mr Ives said the last few weeks and months had been a “black eye for Musk and a black eye for Tesla” which he said was the “golden child” because it is where most of the billionaire’s wealth is.
“Twitter right now – it’s a quicksand situation and I think it’s gotten worse since Musk took over Twitter. It’s been a circus show,” he added.
“I think ultimately in the next 24 hours Musk will probably name a new temporary CEO of Twitter.”
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
The post Elon Musk Asks Twitter Poll if He Should Stay as Boss was originally published on the BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-your-money-64021412
