Elon Musk has offered to step down as “Head of Twitter” pending the results of a user poll Sunday.
“Should I step down as head of Twitter?” the Twitter CEO wrote alongside the poll that offered users a simple “yes” or “no.” “I will abide by the results of this poll,” he said, later warning, “as the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”
One hour after the poll was posted, dethroning Musk as Twitter boss led by a 15-point margin.
The poll comes just hours after Twitter announced a new policy prohibiting the “free promotion” of social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and Post, among others, which was heavily mocked by media figures and users alike.
It is worth mentioning that in November, Musk said, “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.” At the time, he was defending himself in Delaware courtroom in a shareholder lawsuit challenging a compensation package he was awarded by Tesla’s board of directors.
Under the new policy, linking out using a URL or providing a handle without a URL to any of the prohibited platforms — which include Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.”— is a violation of Twitter’s new rules.
Following the major backlash of the policy, Musk tweeted “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.” A couple hours after the policy was announced, Musk tweeted he would revise the policy to “suspend accounts only when that account’s *primary* purpose is promotion of competitors.”
Musk is certainly a fan of using polls to dictate his company’s decisions, as he used this method to reinstate the account of former President Donald Trump, who was suspended in 2021 after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot for violating Twitter guidelines.
Days ago, he also created a poll to determine whether he should “unsuspend accounts who doxxed my exact location in real-time,” though ultimately deciding to re-do the poll.