Elon Musk Wants Twitter To Decide if He Should Stay As Its CEO

Elon Musk is putting his position as Twitter's CEO in the hands of the people.

The Big Twit himself recently published a poll allowing Twitter users to vote on whether he should stay as the company's CEO.

Musk previously announced he would find a new leader for Twitter in mid-November as soon as he completes an organizational restructuring in the company, per Reuters.

Elon Musk Twitter CEO Poll Details

Musk, following his banning of links and username mentions relating to rivals like Facebook, Instagram, and Mastodon, published a poll with a question asking Twitter users if he should step down as the company's CEO, per Engadget.

According to Musk, he will follow the poll's results, whatever it would be. This statement could be in reference to a tweet he posted earlier on Dec. 19, saying he would hold a vote for all major policy changes.

CNET reports that the poll is timed and will stop

accepting votes on Dec. 20 at around 3 AM PT.

As of the writing of this article, more than 6 million Twitter users have cast their vote, with around 57% of them saying he should step down. Meanwhile, about 43% of voters said he shouldn't.

Unfortunately, Musk didn't identify who would replace him as CEO should the poll eventually close with a "Yes" decision instead of the latter.

Since Twitter no longer has a communications department following employees' mass exodus in the past month, the company couldn't respond to inquiries about it.

Musk confirmed that he has yet to choose a successor should the poll's eventual result is "Yes," with him tweeting to a Twitter user that nobody wants the job to "keep Twitter alive."

Additionally, Musk also said to another Twitter user that the problem isn't looking for a successor but finding someone "who can keep Twitter alive" instead.

Regardless, Musk warned Twitter users in a follow-up tweet with a rather ominous notice, saying they should be careful what they wish for as they might get it.

Will Musk Keep His Word?

Despite his promise to abide by the poll's result, there is a precedence of Musk breaking promises in the past, with the absence of Twitter's content moderation council before unbanning Donald Trump from Twitter being the most prominent example.

However, he seems to follow the people's voice when he does publish polls on Twitter, such as the reinstatement of Trump's Twitter account after having been banned for almost two years after the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021.

He also lifted the ban on suspended journalists covering him earlier this week as a result of a poll he published on Dec. 16.

According to the poll, 58.7% of voters said that Musk should unsuspend the journalists' accounts, while 41.3% said they should be unsuspended after a week instead.

As such, it is hard to predict if he would actually abide by the poll's result, though he does have a track record of following the results of the ones he makes.