Elon Musk's No Good, Very Bad Weekend on Twitter Leads to Offer to Step Down

By Allison Schonter

Elon Musk's days as Twitter CEO may be coming to an end. Amid plenty of controversy surrounding his decisions and policies for the social media platform, Musk on Sunday launched a poll, promising to resign as the head of Twitter if the majority of respondents voted yes.

Shared at 6:20 p.m. ET, Musk asked, "I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll." The poll ran for 12 hours, ending at 6:20 a.m. local time with 57.5% of the more than 17 million respondents voting "yes," while 42.5% voted "no." Musk has not tweeted anything since the poll ended early Monday morning – he did cryptically tweet Sunday night that "those who want power are the ones who least deserve it" – so it remains to be seen if he keeps his word. Musk in the past has abided by the results of Twitter polls, such as when he allowed former President Donald Trump back onto the platform. As for who could take over as Twitter CEO? In a follow-up tweet, the Tesla CEO shared, "No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor." It is important to note that even if Musk were to step down, Musk still owns Twitter, meaning he would still have a voice in the decision-making process.

Musk's proposal to step down comes just eight months after he first thought Twitter in April for a whopping $44 billion. In a statement at the time, Musk said, "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," adding that he wished to "make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it." He added that "the question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive," and said that the company was on "the fast lane to bankruptcy since May."

However, ever since stepping into the role, Musk has been surrounded by controversy. Along with the confusion and upset about the police surrounding blue checkmark verified accounts, Musk in recent days sparked outrage after he suspended multiple journalists who covered him and the platform. Then on Sunday, he again sparked controversy when he rolled out a new policy banning users from mentioning other social media accounts in their profiles.

Musk's role as Twitter's head has also had a negative effect on his other business ventures. Tesla investors have been outspoken in their anger against Musk and his new role as Tesla shares have continued to slip. On Friday, shares slipped another 4%, dropping to multi-year lows and giving the stock a nearly 16% drop for the week, per Yahoo! Finance. Musk previously assured investors that he planned to "reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time."

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