New York CNN —
Twitter’s moody new boss could be out after less than two months in office if the results of a Twitter poll speak against him.
Elon Musk tweeted a opinion poll On Sunday evening, he is asking people to vote on whether he should step down as CEO of Twitter. Musk said he will follow the poll’s results.
On Sunday night, “Ja” won by a margin of 58% to 42%.
In several follow-up tweets, Musk indicated he was serious about leaving and vaguely threatened the future of Twitter if he were voted out.
“As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for because you may get it,” Musk said tweeted.
Since buying Twitter for $44 billion and taking over as CEO in late October, Musk has traveled from one controversy to the next.
A short and incomplete summary:
– Musk immediately fired several top executives and about half of Twitter’s employees.
– Then he gave the remaining employees an ultimatum that they had to do “extremely hard” work or leave – and another thousand employees walked out the door.
– Musk has fired employees who openly disagreed with him, and publicly named and shamed former employees involved in difficult moderation discussions as part of the ongoing “Twitter files.”
– Musk also started, stopped, and restarted an overhauled verification system that costs $8 for a blue tick and initially led to widespread account spoofing.
– Musk has frequently changed Twitter’s rules by order and without notice, banning people violating the new rules – including several tech journalists and an account that tracked his jet. Musk once tweeted that being allowed to keep the ElonJet account on Twitter showed his commitment to free speech on the platform.
– He delved deep into the culture wars and unbanned some of the platform’s permanently suspended accounts, including former President Donald Trump and many people involved in misinformation, conspiracy theories or hate speech.
Meanwhile, brands have removed their advertising from Twitter left and right. Musk has frequently stated that Twitter’s finances are bleak.
In response to a tweet Sunday in which MIT artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman said he would take the CEO job, Musk indicated that he wasn’t entirely happy with his new job.
“You must be very fond of pain,” Musk tweeted, noting that the company “has been on the fast track to bankruptcy since May.”
However, Musk denied that he had a new CEO in mind.
“No one wants the job that can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted. “The question isn’t finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”