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Twitter’s owner Elon Musk is asking users of the social media platform to vote on his future as its chief executive.
In a poll to his 122 million followers, he tweeted: “Should I step down as head… I will abide by the results.”
The technology tycoon, who also runs Tesla and Space X, has faced much criticism since taking over Twitter.
After a legal battle, Mr Musk took control of the company in October in a $44bn ($36bn) deal.
At 07:00 GMT on Monday, more than 13 million people had voted in his poll and 57% had said yes to Mr Musk stepping down.
Dan Ives, senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, told the BBC he believed the vote would “ultimately” lead to the “ending of Musk’s reign as chief executive of Twitter”.
There has been a flurry of controversial changes at Twitter since Mr Musk bought the social media site in October.
He has fired about half of its staff and attempted a rollout of Twitter’s paid-for verification feature before putting it on pause. The feature was relaunched last week.
He has also been criticized for his approach to content moderation, with some civil liberties groups accusing him of taking steps that will increase hate speech and misinformation.
On Friday, Mr Musk was condemned by the United Nations and European Union over Twitter’s decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media firm.
The UN tweeted that media freedom is “not a toy”, while the EU threatened Twitter with sanctions.
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
After starting the poll, Mr Musk tweeted: “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”
He added later: “Those who want power are the ones who least deserve it.”
Mr Ives said he believed Mr Musk had realised he “cannot balance” being the boss of Twitter as well as his electric car company Tesla and space rocket firm SpaceX.
“The biggest problem is the more controversy he creates, advertisers leave and they run for the hills and that’s 90% of revenue for Twitter,” he added.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said investors at Tesla would be “closely watching” Mr Musk’s poll.
“Given how much of a distraction Musk’s tenure at Twitter has become, shareholders in the electric vehicle manufacturer will be breathing a big sigh of relief if he steps back from Twitter and gets back to the day job at Tesla,” he said.
“For someone who sets so much store by work ethic, Musk sure seems to spend a lot of time on social media. With Tesla shares having more than halved year-to-date, Musk needs to roll up his sleeves and get his main business back on the road.”
By: BBC
