Elon Musk's poll asking “should I step down as head of Twitter?” ends with 57.5% voting yes, after Musk says Twitter polls will determine “major policy changes”
is he creating conflicts of interest? Is he misappropriating company resources? Tesla is not Musk's private plaything. I've got many questions for the Tesla Board. https://www.nytimes.com/... Marcus Hutchins / @malwaretechblog : In his quest for the greatest self own in history, Elon Musk has now been officially voted out of the company he paid $44bn for, by his own Twitter followers. https://twitter.com/... Ashley Feinberg / @ashleyfeinberg : elon going more than six hours without tweeting for the first time in months because he can't bring himself to acknowledge that he lost the ceo poll he threw up at 2am qatar time is truly one of the funniest things that could have happened Viva Frei / @thevivafrei : Actually, the poll said he should “step down” as “head” of Twitter, @nytimes. Not that he should “quit”. Just a minor distinction... 😂 https://twitter.com/... Mandy Hale / @missmandyhale : Snoop Dogg out here casually saving the day https://twitter.com/... Steven Dennis / @steventdennis : 10 million voted for Elon Musk to step down as CEO of Twitter in a 12-hour poll. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Karl Bode / @karlbode : you almost feel bad for those folks that haven't yet quite processed the fact that musk's entire mythology is a fiction and has been from the start they're in for quite a ride, still See also Mediagazer
Washington Post
Context & Ripple Effects
Musk had already used a user vote to restore Donald Trump’s account, describing the result as dispositive after a proposed content-moderation council had been floated. The leadership vote extends that poll-led reinstatement model from a high-profile account decision to the company’s own management structure.
The policy mechanism was immediately being broadened: Twitter’s safety account polled users on cross-platform promotion, while Musk said voting on policy should be limited to Blue subscribers. That makes the electorate behind major decisions a live product and governance question, not merely a feedback channel.
First-order effects
Musk faces a public vote against his continuing as Twitter’s head just after committing the company to poll-based decisions, making his response a direct test of whether those votes bind him.
Twitter’s policy authority is shifted toward whichever users can participate in its polls, with a proposed Blue-subscriber voting restriction defining who may hold that authority.
Second-order effects
Blue gains a governance-like benefit beyond platform features if policy voting is restricted to subscribers, giving Twitter a new reason to tie participation to its paid tier.
If Twitter continues treating polls as policy mandates, platform governance moves from internal moderation processes toward participation rules controlled by the platform owner and subscription design.
The episode makes legitimacy, voter eligibility, and manipulation resistance central constraints on using engagement tools as corporate-governance instruments.
The trend: Twitter is turning product participation mechanics into a governing mechanism, forcing the company to define who constitutes its decision-making public and how that vote can be trusted.
Fun suggestion @elonmusk: Let me run Twitter for a bit. No salary. All in. Focus on great engineering and increasing the amount of love in the world. Just offering my help in the unlikely case it's useful.
@lexfridman You must like pain a lot. One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Still want the job?
Hey @elonmusk, it's unwise to run a poll like this when you are now deep state enemy #1. They have the biggest bot army on Twitter. They have 100k ‘analysts’ with 30-40 accounts all voting against you. Let's clean up and then run this poll again. The majority has faith in you. 😘 …
I have to believe $TSLA outside directors are putting pressure on Elon to give up his role as $TWTR CEO. It's hard to ignore the numbers since TWTR deal closed on 10/27 ( $TSLA -33% vs NDX unch'd) while 10yrTY have DROPPED from 3.92% to 3.48% on Friday. https://twitter.com/...
In his quest for the greatest self own in history, Elon Musk has now been officially voted out of the company he paid $44bn for, by his own Twitter followers. https://twitter.com/...
Elon Musk took over @Twitter, but he's still the CEO of @Tesla. That raises legal concerns — is he creating conflicts of interest? Is he misappropriating company resources? Tesla is not Musk's private plaything. I've got many questions for the Tesla Board. https://www.nytimes.com…
elon going more than six hours without tweeting for the first time in months because he can't bring himself to acknowledge that he lost the ceo poll he threw up at 2am qatar time is truly one of the funniest things that could have happened
Actually, the poll said he should “step down” as “head” of Twitter, @nytimes. Not that he should “quit”. Just a minor distinction... 😂 https://twitter.com/...
you almost feel bad for those folks that haven't yet quite processed the fact that musk's entire mythology is a fiction and has been from the start they're in for quite a ride, still
The risks of mass exodus from Twitter are overweighted. As will the news cycle in other direction when clear there wasn't exodus. The real thing is everyone is realizing they need to find ways to diversify and backup their social capital being purely tied up in twitter
The question is actually finding a CEO who could possibly keep it alive with Musk as an owner. Short of a binding affidavit from Musk that he'd be a hands-off shareholder (which would never happen, probably rightly), who would possibly take this on? https://twitter.com/...
I hope @elonmusk understands that the free speech battle he is waging at Twitter is no less important than any of his other admirable ventures. Whether he's running Twitter as CEO or not, he needs to put a team in place that will continue to lead this fight for freedom
Do you all remember that great article from years ago about how some unhinged libertarian dude took over Sears, and drove the entire venerable company of high reputation straight into the ground with his ideology-produced bad management? Came to mind recently for some reason.
If you're asking my opinion, the Tesla board probably had a “come to Jesus” meeting with Musk. The stock is plummeting. If something doesn't change, he'll lose both companies. This is a way for him to quit and blame it on someone else. Calacanis is my bet for new CEO.
Reminder that Twitter was nowhere near bankruptcy in May. Q2 loss of $244 million. Around $2.7 billion of cash in the bank. Obviously not a healthy biz. But not close to a bankrupt one. https://s22.q4cdn.com/...
Days between Liz Truss becoming prime minister and Tory backbenchers telling her to resign: 45 Days between Elon Musk taking over Twitter and Twitter poll telling him to resign: 53
Unpopular opinion: Elon Musk put out the social media link deletion policy around Facebook and Instagram purposely, to turn Twitter against him on the poll that followed, to give him an out, and he already has a CEO successor in place.
The reason Twitter is the talk of the world right now - it's because @elonmusk is running it. If he hands it off to someone else - it'll instantly lose all its magic.
Sequoia Capital is declining comment. Twitter is one of the largest, if not the largest, investments in its history. Like w/ FTX, there's no board of directors. Which Sequoia and others knew going in, or at least didn't require as condition of investing Fallen so far so fast.
TESLA SHARES MOVE HIGHER SLIGHTLY AFTER ELON MUSK'S TWITTER POLL RESULTS SHOW MAJORITY WANT HIM TO STEP DOWN AS TWITTER CEO, LAST UP 5% PREMARKET $TSLA
Don't be completely fooled by Musk's tweets as *the* narrative - the likely plan was to see if he could change a bunch of stuff he didn't like while being a lightning rod for criticism, then handover to a CEO. On November 16, Musk said in court he'd only be temporarily in charge.