Twitter drama: Elon Musk lets you decide if he should step down

Once again worried Elon Musk with his Acquisition of the social media platform Twitter for headlines: After he founded the micro-blogging network at the end of October $44 billion had taken over, he then repeatedly caused sensational reports: First he wanted the blue heels, which signals that an account is a real person or relevant organization, is available to anyone who pays eight dollars for it. This backfired badly, with trolls posing as big corporate accounts and posting tweets that crashed stock prices. So it was quickly backtracked. Also Musk’s promise that Twitter is now the “Freedom of Speech Platform”, the billionaire did not comply. Because many accounts of journalists who criticized him were then simply blocked due to newly devised rules. After much criticism Musk may now have come to his senses: In a He lets the poll vote on his post as CEO of Twitter. And it’s not working in his favor…

“I will abide by the results of this survey”

Multi-millionaire Elon Musk has had his Twitter followers vote on the network’s chief post for several hours. “Should I resign as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” he wrote on the social media platform. “Yes” and “No” are possible answers. And the poll doesn’t seem to be going in his favour: as of this writing, around 58% of all votes are in favor of Musk stepping down from the CEO post. More than 17 million users have voted so far.

Most recently, the Tesla and SpaceX boss had often made negative headlines: After the blue hook was introduced for everyone, troll accounts pretended to be real corporations and, for example, caused the share price of the insulin manufacturer “Eli Lilly” to collapse , when it was announced that insulin was “now free for everyone”.

Many also criticize Musk’s proximity to right-wing and right-wing extremists, which Musk keeps looking for on Twitter: The multi-billionaire has repeatedly participated in tweets from well-known conspiracy theorists or ultra-right accounts or liked them. His own tweets, in which he uses right-wing narratives, are no longer uncommon on his account, which has more than 120 million followers.

And just recently, Musk blocked numerous accounts of prominent US journalists who had reported critically about him and his Twitter platform. An announcement by the micro-blogging service that it would be forbidden in future to link to other online platforms and websites such as Facebook, Instagram or Mastodon also met with criticism.

Who could be Elon Musk’s successor?

Meanwhile, speculation is growing on Twitter as to who could become Musk’s successor if he actually resigns as CEO. In a picture circulating on Twitter, he can be seen in the VIP box at the World Cup final between Argentina and France. Next to him is Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Now some suspect he could become Twitter’s new CEO.

That would not be particularly absurd, after all, Musk is openly committed to the US Republicans, including Trump: shortly before the congressional elections in early November, the multi-billionaire called for Republicans to be elected.

But even if Kushner doesn’t become the new CEO, Musk warns in a tweet to “be careful what you ask for, because you might get it in the end.” This tweet is likely a direct nod to his critics who wish he was gone as CEO of Twitter. However, Musk would still have all the power afterwards and the successor boss should in principle only be a puppet of the multi-billionaire.