Twitter CEO

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, clarified Tuesday evening that he will resign as Twitter CEO, but only after identifying a new leader, specifically addressing for the very first time a Twitter poll he made earlier this week in which thousands of users voted for his overthrow.

Musk stated in a tweet that he would resign as soon as he finds someone unwise enough to take the job.

Musk also stated that after stepping down as CEO, he will run the software & servers teams at Twitter, implying that he will retain great influence over the business and decisions.

The news comes now after a day of passivity regarding the poll’s outcome. After more than 17 million daily users chose to vote, with 57.5 percent of respondents saying Musk should resign, Musk acknowledged the results only implicitly on Monday. He proposed that future Twitter polls be limited to paid subscribers to Twitter Blue which is the firm’s subscription service.

Musk’s poll asking people whether he should step down as CEO came in the wake of a huge backlash over Twitter’s abrupt dispersion of several journalists who cover him, as well as Twitter’s choice to ban, then unban, links to other social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Mastodon which is a rapidly growing Twitter rival that has grown in size since October.

Musk’s brief duration as CEO has caused dramatic, sometimes unpredictable changes at one of the world’s most powerful social media firms.

Under his governance, Twitter has laid off most of its employees, ostracised major advertisers, accepted former President Donald Trump back to the site after his suspension following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, as well as issued internal communications to reporters about Twitter’s operational processes before Musk acquired the company.

Musk forced the company’s existing workers to sign a pledge to become extremely hardcore in their job, and he flagrantly ignored Twitter’s policy against Covid-19 misconceptions.

Twitter launched, and then had to un-launch, a paid verification feature that was immediately exploited by cynical accounts imitating authenticated major brands, sports people, and other prominent people on the platform in a matter of days.

Musk’s proclivity for making massive product changes based on nothing other than informal Twitter poll results has highlighted his impromptu and ad hoc management style. However, many people on Twitter have expressed their displeasure with this approach. Twitter suspended several reporters last week after they reported on Musk’s complete ban of a profile that tracked his jet.

Growing critique of Musk resulted in Sunday’s poll, which served as an impactful, if unscientific, referendum on Musk’s management of the business since his acquisition of Twitter in late October.