Elon Musk will resign as Twitter CEO after being defeated in his own disastrous poll.
The Tesla boss, 51, said when he uploaded the poll that he would ‘abide by’ the result – even if users said he should step down.
Tonight, he confirmed that he would resign from the role he took on during his $44billion takeover – once he finds a replacement ‘foolish enough’ to replace him.
The billionaire tweeted: ‘I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.’
Sticking to his word: The billionaire, pictured at the World Cup final on Sunday, said he would ‘just run the software & servers teams’ once he finds someone to replace him as CEO. The poll, in which 57.5 per cent of people said they wanted to see Musk leave his position, was posted over the weekend
The result of his poll was confirmed on Monday morning, with a total of 57.5 per cent of more than 17million accounts voting for him to step down from his position. This means 42.5 per cent voted in favor of him staying on as head of the website – the equivalent of nearly 7.5million users.
After setting the poll live, Musk warned: ‘As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.’
Normally a prolific user of the platform, Musk, who also runs car maker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX, did not tweet in the immediate hours following the poll.
He broke his silence just before 11.30pm on Monday, when he responded ‘Interesting’ to a suggestion from convicted fraudster Kim Dotcom, founder of the once wildly popular file-sharing website Megaupload, that the results of the poll were skewed by fake accounts.
After being defeated in his own Twitter poll, Musk has said he must find someone ‘foolish’ enough to take on the job of Twitter’s CEO
Replying to another user’s suggestion that ‘Blue subscribers should be the only ones that can vote in policy-related polls,’ Musk said: ‘Good point. Twitter will make that change.’
His Twitter stream continued into the early hours of Tuesday morning, linking to the site’s World Cup statistics and laughing at a satirical take on Bruce Wayne running a poll about stepping down as Batman.
Rapper Snoop Dogg jokingly ran a poll of his own, asking his followers if he should replace Musk by posing the question: ‘Should I run Twitter?’
After ten hours, 81.8 per cent of the one million people who voted in his poll said yes.
In recent days, Musk has suspended the accounts of several journalists after complaining some had published details about the movements of his private jet, which he claimed could endanger his family.
Employees of CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post were among those affected in a move that drew sharp criticism, including from the European Union and the United Nations.
On Sunday, Twitter users were told they would no longer be able to promote content from other social media sites.
But Musk seemed to reverse this decision a few hours later, writing that the policy would be limited to ‘suspending accounts only when that account’s *primary* purpose is promotion of competitors’.
‘Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again,’ he tweeted.
The attempted ban had prompted widespread disapproval, and bemused even Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, who had backed Musk’s takeover.
Dorsey questioned the new policy with a one-word tweet: ‘Why?’
Unpredictable entrepreneur Musk has owned Twitter since October 27.
His Sunday night poll came after weeks of controversial decisions including sacking half of Twitter’s global staff, readmitting far-right figures to the platform, and trying to charge for previously free services.
Twitter has also said it would no longer work to combat Covid-19 disinformation.
Analysts have also pointed out that the stock price of Tesla has slumped by one-third since Musk’s takeover. The share price briefly rallied by 3.3 per cent on Monday before fading again.
Some online safety groups have accused the billionaire of allowing hate, abuse and misinformation to more easily circulate on the platform.
While it remains unclear who could replace Musk as CEO, several commentators have noted that the billionaire would still have the final say on major decisions as Twitter’s owner.
In recent weeks Musk has been releasing the so-called ‘Twitter files’, revealing how the site interacted with the US Government before he took over.
The first batch related to efforts to get pictures of Hunter Biden removed from the website.
Musk, pictured at Offshore Northern Seas 2022 in Stavenger, Norway, has been criticized for the way he has run Twitter
In the second release, again posted by journalist Matt Taibi, it was revealed that the FBI demanded executives from the social media giant give them information about how they were enforcing safety online.
The released emails show that former ‘Twitter censor’ Yoel Roth feared the FBI was breaking the law to help US intelligence engage in domestic operations after receiving the requests from agent Elvis Chan.
He responded to Chan saying: ‘I’m frankly perplexed by the requests here, which seem more like something we’d get from a congressional committee than the Bureau.’
FBI officials even asked Twitter to give it the locations that some accounts were being operated from, prompting concerns it was an attack on First Amendment free speech.
The FBI responded to Taibi with a statement, saying: ‘The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities.’
Since taking over the website, Musk has proclaimed it to be a bastion of free speech, and has tried to tempt people previously banned from the website back to it.
In November he made overtures to former president Donald Trump, who was booted from Twitter in January 2021 after the US Capitol insurrection.
Shortly after his acquisition of Twitter, Musk announced he had reinstated Trump’s account, which had over 88.9million followers at the time of his suspension.
However, Trump rebuffed his offer, sparking a string of posts from Musk lambasting him for turning it down.