Elon Musk Breaks Silence After 10 Million Twitter Users Vote For Him To Step Down – Elon Musk tweeted for the first time since over 10 million people voted in favor of him resigning as Twitter’s CEO, announcing that only paid Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to vote in future policy-related polls. Musk asked Twitter users on Sunday if he should resign as the company’s CEO, promising to abide by the findings of his poll. As of Monday’s poll closing, 57.5% of respondents agreed he should step down.
Musk, a frequent user of the platform, did not tweet in the hours following the poll, despite being a frequent user. His silence was ultimately broken when he replied “Interesting” to several claims that the poll results were skewed by fake accounts. 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.”
People Also Read: Frustrated Virtual Reality Pioneer Leaves Facebook’s Parent
Twitter Blue is a premium subscription that allows anyone to purchase a blue tick badge for their profile. As the majority owner of the privately owned firm, no one can force Musk out, but a series of puzzling actions made by Musk over the past several days have forced even some of his closest supporters to cut connections with him. A decision to ban an account that tracked the location of his private jet last week was followed by a mass suspension of critical journalists who reported on the ban.
This resulted in a migration of some active users to other social networks, most notably its alternative competitor Mastodon, whose account was blocked for publishing a link to the jet tracker’s account on the rival site. Musk reacted on Sunday by banning any links to other social networks, including Mastodon, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as minor platforms such as Nostr, which was used by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, and Linktree, a homepage construction tool favored by influencers.
This ban was lifted at the end of the day following a Twitter poll conducted by the Twitter Safety account, with Musk stating: “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.” Musk has a history of using Twitter polls to rubber-stamp major decisions, selling a tenth of his Tesla holdings after one poll in 2021, restoring Donald Trump’s account after a second last month and reinstating a number of suspended accounts after a third. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted after the Trump poll.
People Also Read: Twitter Suspends Account Tracking Elon Musk’s Jet That Billionaire Claims Put His Son at Risk
In numerous instances, he has given the impression of having already decided on the decision prior to posting: he had announced the sale of his Tesla interests long before he put it to a vote, and his plan to reinstate Trump had been discussed since before he purchased Twitter. The idea of stepping down as chief executive had also been hinted at long before the Twitter poll was published. On 16 November, he told a Delaware judge that he planned to reduce his time at Twitter and “find somebody else to run Twitter over time.”
