Elon Musk has vowed to quit as Twitter CEO two months after buying the platform for $44 billion.
The 51-year-old Tesla co-founder has responded to a social media poll he posted on the site which asked whether he should “step down as head of Twitter”, with 57.5% of people who voted saying yes.
On Tuesday night, he tweeted: “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 (and) servers teams."
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022
Over the weekend, he had promised to “abide by the results of this poll”, which ran for 12 hours and saw 17 502 391 Twitter users cast their vote.
The billionaire insisted he didn’t have a successor in mind when he posed the question.
In response to one user suggesting he already has a new CEO “picked out”, Musk replied: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.”
He also wrote to another user: “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”
And he also issued two warnings along with the vote.
In one, he wrote: “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”
In a later tweet, he added: “Those who want power are the ones who least deserve it.”
Those who want power are the ones who least deserve it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2022
Musk has been under fire recently for a number of decisions on the platform, including reports that he had been suspending the Twitter accounts of reporters from major news outlets.
According to TMZ, he used his power to silence the likes of Donie O’Sullivan from CNN, Drew Harwell from “The Washington Post”, Matt Binder from “Mashable”, Ryan Mac from “New York Times”, Micah Lee from “The Intercept” as well as Keith Olbermann and Aaron Rupar.
Some journalists have shared a screenshot of a message from Twitter which reads: “Your account is suspended. After careful review, we determined your account broke Twitter rules.
“Your account is permanently in read-only mode, which means you can’t Tweet, Retweet or Like content.
“You won't be able to create new accounts. If you think we got this wrong, you can submit an appeal.”
In another controversial move, Musk has allowed Twitter Blue subscribers to effectively pay for verification via a blue tick, and last month the platform stopped taking action against accounts spreading misinformation about Covid-19.
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