Twitter poll: Majority vote for Musk’s ouster as CEO, but will he quit?

Elon Musk on Tuesday said that he doubted the reliability of a Twitter poll in which a majority of votes said he should step down as a CEO of the company.

Musk, who became sole owner of the platform on October 27, said earlier he would abide by the poll results and there were media reports quoting Musk that he will step down as chief executive of Twitter after finding a replacement.

But in a series of tweets, the tycoon indicated his belief that the vote may have been rigged by bots, AFP reported.

Also read: “Should I step down?” Elon Musk asks in a Twitter poll

Poll result

In the poll results, which were posted on Monday, 57 per cent of voters, or 10 million votes, favoured Musk stepping down just eight weeks after he took ownership of the company for $44 billion.

But polling company HarrisX on Tuesday tweeted out their own poll of Twitter users, in which 61 per cent of respondents voted to keep Musk as CEO.

“Interesting. Suggest that maybe we might still have an itsy-bitsy bot problem on Twitter…” Musk said in a response.

HarrisX said the findings “debunk” the vote on Twitter, adding that the poll was run independently of “Twitter or any Elon Musk related organizations.”

Bots back in debate

This came after Musk endorsed another tweet suggesting the Twitter poll had been overtaken by bots. He also said that any future polls would be limited to Twitter’s paying subscribers.

Musk has used the Twitter polls to take controversial decisions on the platform, including the reinstatement of the account of former US president Donald Trump and other suspended users.

The results of his latest poll on Monday briefly boosted the share price in his electric car company Tesla with investors hopeful that Musk would spend less time at Twitter.

Conflicting reports

CNBC and Bloomberg reported that Musk was carrying out a search for a new Twitter CEO, citing anonymous sources, but the Tesla and SpaceX owner ridiculed the report with a laughing emoji on Twitter.

Also read: After Twitter poll, Musk agrees to reactivate journos’ suspended accounts

Earlier, soon after the poll results were out, Musk said he will step down as chief executive of Twitter after finding a replacement. “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers’ teams,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

(With Agency inputs)