Elon Musk to step down as head of Twitter after losing poll
Jess Hardiman
Featured Image Credit: Doug Peters/Askar Karimullin/Alamy Stock Photo
It looks like Elon Musk will be stepping down as head of Twitter, following a poll on the platform about his future at the social media company.
Musk had asked followers if he should stand down in a Twitter poll, saying: "I will abide by the results of this poll."
The final results came in as 57.5 percent in favour of Musk quitting, compared to 42.5 percent against it.
There were more than 17 million votes from Twitter users, while the post itself also racked up hundreds of thousands of retweets and likes.
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After posting the poll yesterday, Musk cryptically tweeted: "As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it."
It isn't the first time Musk has allowed Twitter users to make some big decisions for him.
On 16 December, the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur asked followers when he should 'unsuspend accounts who doxxed my exact location in real-time'.
A total of 58.7 per cent of people voted for 'now', thus bringing an end to a rather rocky week for the billionaire.
The doxxing disaster kicked off on 14 December after Twitter suspended college student Jack Sweeney from the platform.
Sweeney, 20, had set up the @Elonjet account - which uses publicly available data to track Musk's private jet - in June 2020.
But the college student had his account banned, with Musk threatening legal action after an alleged ‘crazy stalker’ followed a car carrying his son in Los Angeles. Musk said the man ‘blocked’ the car from moving and ‘climbed on the hood’.
Following the incident, Musk tweeted: “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.
"Posting locations someone travelled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is OK."
He added: "Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organisations who supported harm to my family."
Musk then went on to suspend several journalists who had written about Sweeney's ban from the social media platform.
That move saw the Twitter head criticised for his actions, as they directly went against his vow to bring free speech to the social media site.
Just one month ago, Musk had even tweeted that he would not ban the @ElonJet account, writing: "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk."