It took over 40 hours, however Elon Musk has lastly acknowledged the outcomes of a public ballot he ran calling for him to step down as CEO of Twitter.
“I’ll resign as CEO as quickly as I discover somebody silly sufficient to take the job!” Musk tweeted on Tuesday night time. “After that, I’ll simply run the software program & servers groups.”
The admission comes after a ballot Musk himself launched, by which some 17 million Twitter customers — or 57.5 % of these polled — mentioned they had been in favor of Musk resigning. Musk didn’t instantly settle for the outcomes publicly, which he mentioned he’d do however relatively forged doubt on the validity of the ballot.
It wasn’t simply nameless Twitter customers who needed Musk to step down. Outdoors traders additionally known as for Musk to focus much less on Twitter and extra on Tesla. They’ve seen the Twitter drama as one thing that distracted Musk from his extra profitable enterprise at Tesla, which noticed its inventory value fall precipitously in current weeks. Musk has lengthy mentioned he ultimately needed to step down as Twitter CEO, so it’s unclear why he appeared so unwilling to simply accept the outcomes of the ballot calling for him to finish his chaotic reign as head of the corporate.
All that mentioned, the current ballot debacle demonstrates Musk’s self-destructive attachment to operating Twitter although it has jeopardized his repute and enterprise success since he took over in October. It’s additionally one other instance of how Musk can’t appear to deal with criticism — from debating the proportion of individuals within the crowd who had been booing him at a comedy present to firing staff who criticized him, and now, dismissing the legitimacy of the Twitter customers who voted him out of the corporate he simply purchased.
Relatively than commenting on the outcomes of the ballot within the hours after it concluded, Musk took to Twitter on Monday morning and inspired questions on whether or not the outcomes had been respectable. He engaged in a Twitter thread by a person suggesting {that a} “deep state” bot military was rigging the ballot towards him. Musk replied to a different person in the identical thread who urged that solely paid subscribers to Twitter Blue ought to be capable of vote in polls. He mentioned, “Twitter will make that change.”
Polls have been a popular tactic in Musk’s erratic management type for making main choices at Twitter. When he polled customers about whether or not Twitter ought to reinstate the account of former US President Donald Trump, for instance, Musk shortly accepted the outcomes that had been narrowly in favor of bringing Trump again on. Hours after the ballot closed, Musk tweeted that “the folks have spoken” and reinstated Trump’s account.
This time, although, Musk dragged his ft. On Tuesday, Musk replied to a tweet by market analysis agency HarrisX, which carried out its personal ballot and located that 61 % of individuals needed Musk to remain on.
Fascinating. Counsel that possibly we’d nonetheless have an itsy bitsy bot drawback on Twitter …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2022
Musk had complained about Twitter bots since earlier than he purchased the platform. At the moment, he tried to make use of the platform’s bot drawback as an excuse to get out of the deal. However since he took over, Musk mentioned he’s wiped Twitter of extreme bots. It was complicated, then, that he would run a ballot on Twitter concerning the destiny of his personal management if he didn’t have full confidence in its validity.
However once more, it was at all times a part of Musk’s plan to ultimately discover a substitute CEO for Twitter. In November, he advised a Delaware courtroom, “I anticipate to scale back my time at Twitter and discover someone else to run Twitter over time.”
A part of what gave the impression to be holding Musk again, nonetheless, is that he noticed no good substitute.
“Nobody desires the job who can really hold Twitter alive. There isn’t a successor,” tweeted Musk on Sunday. Then, on Tuesday, he replied with laughing emojis at a current NBC story reporting that he’s actively in search of a brand new CEO.
So after he created a man-made deadline to do one thing he already needed to do, Musk lastly appears able to take the following step.
Replace, December 20, 10:10 pm ET: This story has been up to date to incorporate the most recent details about Elon Musk’s plans to step down as CEO of Twitter.
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