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Elon Musk Could Step Away As Twitter CEO After Poll Results

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Twitter boss Elon Musk’s days of running the social media platform he bought earlier this year for $44 billion could be numbered after the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO launched a poll on the platform asking users to decide whether or not they want him to remain as Twitter’s chief executive.

“Should I step down as head of Twitter?” Musk asked in the now-completed survey. “I will abide by the results of this poll.”

As of Monday morning, more than 17.5 million votes were cast, with 57.5 percent of respondents wanting him to step down as CEO compared to 42.5 percent who wanted him to remain.

Separately, Musk tweeted, “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”

The CEO question came amid a backlash against Musk and Twitter after the platform announced on Sunday “saying that it was going to ban users from being able to promote their other social media accounts on other platforms,” The Daily Wire reported.

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“Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post,” one of the now-deleted tweets said.

Musk eventually apologized: “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”

“We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter,” the company noted in a statement. “Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.”

The platform added that it would “remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) … or providing your handle without a URL” to the aforementioned platforms or to “3rd-party social media link aggregators such as linktr.ee, lnk.bio.”

“Additionally, any attempts to bypass restrictions on external links to the above prohibited social media platforms through technical or non-technical means (e.g. URL cloaking, plaintext obfuscation) is in violation of this policy,” the statement noted further. “This includes, but is not limited to, spelling out ‘dot’ for social media platforms that use ‘.’ in the names to avoid URL creation, or sharing screenshots of your handle on a prohibited social media platform.”

The statement went on to say that cross-posting from different platforms isn’t a violation of the policy, even from the sites that were listed. The company also said it would authorize users to pay to promote their social media accounts on other platforms, the Daily Wire noted.

Also Sunday, Musk was spotted making a surprise appearance at the World Cup final, at one point being seen with former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The appearance at the World Cup came as Musk decided to bring back journalists he suspended for reporting on the flight information of his private jet.

This week, Musk said that the suspended accounts had violated the Twitter Terms of Service by sharing the information.

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The CEO shared a poll on Twitter asking if the suspended journalists should be reinstated “now” or “in seven days.” With 58.7 percent of those who responded answering that the accounts should be reinstated immediately, he decided to honor it.

“The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now,” he said.

The Twitter CEO explained his reasoning for the high-profile suspensions after they began to trend on his platform.

“Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” he said on Twitter.

“Accounts engaged in doxxing receive a temporary 7 day suspension,” he said.

“If anyone posted real-time locations & addresses of NYT reporters, FBI would be investigating, there’d be hearings on Capitol Hill & Biden would give speeches about end of democracy!” he said in another tweet.

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