Twitter users say Elon Musk should step down as CEO of social media giant

Dec. 19 (UPI) — Millions of Twitter users have voted for Elon Musk to step down as the company’s new CEO after he posted a poll to the platform on Sunday asking if he should quit.

The poll closed on Monday after 12 hours and more than 17 million votes, with more than 57% saying yes, Musk should go.

Although Musk wrote in the initial tweet that he would “abide by the results of this poll,” there was no immediate word from the billionaire executive on whether he planned to truly follow through on his promise following the results.

Musk became CEO of the company in October after finalizing a deal to buy the social media giant for $44 billion. Aside from attempting to revamp the company’s user verification and content moderation processes, Musk has also stirred controversy by laying off about 50% of the company’s workers and suspending the accounts of several prominent U.S. journalists for what he called “doxxing.”

Several corporate-level resignations and dwindling advertising sales have also strained the company since Musk’s takeover.

Notably, the Sunday poll also coincided with a new policy from Twitter that prohibited its users from sharing links and promoting profiles from competing sites like Facebook, Instagram and Mastodon.

The policy became effective immediately after the announcement, and within hours at least one prominent Twitter user became entangled by the new rule.

Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator — a U.S. technological giant that helped launch many of the world’s most popular digital apps — told his 1.5 million followers to find him on Mastodon after his account was suspended around 2 p.m. on Sunday. The apparent departure was notable because Graham said previously that he supported Musk’s takeover at the company. Following the uproar, Twitter lifted the suspension and then seemed to roll back its decision altogether — deleting every announcement it made about the change and taking down a support page that explained the details. By 9 p.m. Sunday, Twitter had replaced its new edict with a poll that asked: “should we have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms?”

In that poll, more than 86% voted no as of Monday morning, and on Sunday night Musk reemerged on Twitter to say he was sorry.

“Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again,” he wrote.

Before scrubbing the policy, Twitter said violations of its “free promotion” policy could result in posts being blocked, and accounts being temporarily locked or permanently suspended for repeat violations. At the same time, the platform indicated that it would continue to allow paid promotions from any of the prohibited platforms.

“We recognize that certain social media platforms provide alternative experiences to Twitter, and allow users to post content to Twitter from these platforms,” the company said. “In general, any type of cross-posting to our platform is not in violation of this policy, even from the prohibited sites listed above.”

Previously, Musk has indicated that his tenure at the company is only temporary, and that someone else would eventually be appointed to serve as the company’s CEO.

Musk recently explained that “once Twitter is set on the right path, I think it is a much easier thing to manage” when compared to his other holdings, Tesla and SpaceX.

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