Elon Musk, in Twitter poll, asks if he should step down as Twitter CEO

On Sunday, Twitter's caller proprietor and CEO Elon Musk posted an informal poll of users of the societal media level asking if helium should measurement down arsenic caput of the company. By 2:50 a.m. ET 14.5 cardinal votes had been cast, with the bulk of respondents (57%) calling for the billionaire to stay successful his post.

Musk claimed helium volition abide by the results of the poll, which is owed to adjacent aboriginal Monday morning, but it is unclear whether oregon not helium volition really bash so.

In tribunal successful November, Musk said, "I expect to trim my clip astatine Twitter and find idiosyncratic other to tally Twitter implicit time." However, connected Sunday, helium wrote successful a tweet that determination is no imaginable successor for him astatine the societal media company.

"The question is not uncovering a CEO, the question is uncovering a CEO who tin support Twitter alive," he wrote.

Twitter polls are straw polls, meaning they are informal and not comparable to nonrecreational nationalist sentiment research. Malicious bots oregon inauthentic accounts whitethorn besides beryllium capable to registry a effect to a Twitter poll.

Musk's Sunday canvass followed online backlash aft the "Chief Twit" (as helium has called himself) made abrupt changes to policies impacting users of Twitter successful the past week.

For example, the institution introduced a caller social media level promotion argumentation connected Sunday, which prohibited users from sharing links to immoderate of their different societal media accounts. Longtime Musk friends and proponents, including Y Combinator laminitis Paul Graham, expressed their dismay astatine the argumentation causing Musk to aboriginal apologize and rotation it back.

Days earlier, Twitter made changes to its argumentation connected "doxxing," which the institution present defines as "sharing someone's backstage accusation online without their permission." The caller argumentation prohibits users from sharing different people's unrecorded determination information, location addresses, interaction accusation oregon carnal determination accusation but has near galore confused implicit what accusation crosses Twitter's line. 

Musk's argumentation changes were utilized arsenic a justification to suspend the Twitter accounts of a fig of U.S.-based journalists, commentators and others who were captious of the CEO oregon his companies successful the past. Some of the accounts were afloat oregon partially restored a fewer days later, but not all.

The suspensions marked the latest section of Musk's rocky takeover astatine Twitter. He led the acquisition of the institution for astir $44 cardinal successful October, and his enactment has resulted successful massive unit cuts, a spike successful racist hatred speech, advertisers fleeing oregon slashing their spending connected the platform, as good arsenic the reinstatement of antecedently banned accounts.

Musk claims that Twitter usage has reached an all-time high since helium took over, and hate code impressions person fallen.

The billionaire's absorption astatine Twitter is bleeding into, and raising concerns about, his different ventures.

For example, Musk has sold billions of dollars worthy of Tesla shares this twelvemonth to concern the Twitter takeover. He has besides pulled successful endowment from some Tesla and SpaceX, including executives, engineers and attorneys, to assistance him astatine Twitter.

Earlier this month, NASA head Bill Nelson asked SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell whether Musk's "distraction" astatine Twitter mightiness impact SpaceX's enactment with the abstraction agency, NBC News reported. Nelson said she reassured him it would not.

But Musk's behaviour astatine Twitter is having a antagonistic interaction connected his car company's nationalist representation and banal price. Shares successful Tesla had dropped astir 60% year-to-date arsenic of Sunday night. It comes amid a wide diminution successful maturation stocks which has seen the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite autumn implicit 30% year-to-date.

Tesla's largest retail shareholder, Leo Koguan, wrote successful a tweet connected Dec. 14, that "Elon abandoned Tesla and Tesla has nary moving CEO." He called connected the company's committee of directors to instrumentality action. "Tesla needs and deserves to person [a] moving afloat clip CEO," helium wrote, criticizing the company's committee of directors for evident inaction.

Musk tweeted past week that helium volition "make sure" Tesla shareholders benefit from Twitter successful the agelong term.

A survey successful Germany's Der Spiegel past week recovered that 63% of respondents feel that Elon Musk's nationalist show arsenic the CEO of Twitter has had a mostly antagonistic oregon intelligibly antagonistic interaction connected their presumption of Tesla.

And lone 9% of respondents to that survey said they find Tesla precise oregon mostly likable arsenic a marque — the institution ranked acold down VW, BMW, Opel and others successful Germany. That's contempt the information that Tesla is investing heavy successful the German market. It opened a large conveyance assembly works successful Grünheide, extracurricular of Berlin, successful March this year.