Elon Musk polls Twitter: 'Should I step down?' – and the vote is trending 'Yes'
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Elon Musk polls Twitter: 'Should I step down?' – and the vote is trending 'Yes'
Musk's Twitter poll started out in his favor, but it's gone in the other direction
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Elon on the ropes
🗳️ Elon Musk’s latest poll: “Should I step down as head of Twitter?”
😬 Results so far – 58% saying Yes, step down – aren’t in Musk’s favor
👀 Musk just tweeted “be careful what you wish, as you might get it”
🐦 It’s been a chaotic weekend of account and link banning via new policies
⏪ Musk reversed the ban on casual linking to rival social media platforms
New-ish Twitter owner Elon Musk has tweeted a poll asking whether or not he should step down as the head of the social media platform. And the results are close, but, update, they’re not trending in Musk’s favor right now.
Only 42% of polled users who have taken the poll want Musk to stay as head of Twitter. About 58% of users want him gone. It should be noted that this is a 12-hour poll and we’re only in the first few hours. So far, 4.3M people have voted so far (I’ll keep updating this portion of the news story).
Why Elon Musk’s poll matters
It’s been a chaotic weekend on Twitter – it started with the suspension of several accounts, including those of journalists for alleged doxxing (to much dispute), and it ended with a prohibition of linking to rival social media accounts like Instagram, Facebook and Mastadon (which, again, led the banning of some prominent Twitter accounts, including Musk supporters). Several suspensions were reversed.
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Musk walked back the decision on linking to outside social media accounts, saying tonight that the “Policy will be adjusted to suspending accounts only when that account’s *primary* purpose is promotion of competitors, which essentially falls under the no spam rule.”
All of this seemed to fly in the face of Musk’s commitment to “free speech,” according to his vocal critics. Musk and his defenders, meanwhile, said promotion of rival social media platforms is something people should have to pay for through ads.
Right before running the ongoing “Should I step down” poll, Musk tweeted about the ban reversal for outside links, saying, “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”
That was his tweet right before running this poll – and maybe his last tweet poll as the “head of Twitter” with the way things are looking. Whether he stays as the day-to-day decision-maker at Twitter or installs a like-minded CEO, the revealing of new Twitter Files are expected to continue, and you can catch up on things in our Twitter Files explainer.
Developing…