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
Elon Musk said on Tuesday that he would resign as Twitter’s chief executive when he found “someone foolish enough to take the job,” two days after he had asked his 122 million Twitter followers whether he should step down as the leader of the social media site and a majority of respondents answered yes.
Mr. Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October, asked his followers the question on Sunday night after facing a backlash for unpopular new content moderation policies and the seemingly capricious barring and reinstatement of high-profile users. Even some once-staunch supporters criticized his actions, calling his antics on the platform “the last straw.”
The survey attracted 17.5 million votes. Mr. Musk had said he would abide by the result, and more than 57 percent agreed that he should step down.
But hours after the poll closed on Monday morning, Mr. Musk stayed silent. When he finally spoke up late Monday, he did not directly address the survey result. Instead, he replied to Twitter users who cast doubt on the outcome and said Twitter would change its poll feature so that only people who paid for its subscription service would be allowed to vote.
Then late on Tuesday, Mr. Musk tweeted that he planned to resign after finding a successor as chief executive. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” he said.
Mr. Musk has based content moderation decisions at Twitter on past “polls.” But he has also made promises and predictions at his companies that he has failed to keep.
.
