Early on Monday 19th December 2022 morning, Elon Musk conducted a poll on Twitter asking users whether they thought he should “resign as CEO of Twitter.” The majority of respondents chose to do so.
Musk had stated that he would follow the results of the illegitimate vote, which was conducted beginning Sunday evening and ended with 57.5% voting in favor and 42.5% against.
In an unofficial vote on his chaotic management of Twitter, which has been marked by mass layoffs, the replat forming of accounts that had broken Twitter’s rules, the suspension of journalists who cover him, and whiplash policy changes made and reversed in real time, more than 17 million votes were cast.
When the vote’s results were announced, Musk did not respond right away. The poll’s results are released while the company’s operations encounter fresh difficulties.
Several companies have halted their advertising on Twitter ever after Musk finished buying the social media company in October. Musk has regularly emphasized how terrible Twitter’s financial situation is.
According to Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, Twitter is expected to lose $4 billion annually as a result of the departure of advertisers.
In response to a tweet from MIT artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman on Sunday, who suggested he would assume the CEO position, Musk implied that he hasn’t been entirely satisfied with his new position.
“You must like pain a lot,” Musk tweeted, noting the company “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May.”
Other volunteers were also motivated by the poll. Snoop Dogg, a musician, started his own Twitter poll on Sunday night, posing the question, “Should I run Twitter?” It received 1.3 million votes as of early Monday morning, with more than 80% of respondents supporting yes.
But Musk denied that he is considering hiring a new CEO. “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted. “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”
Musk has reportedly sold stock in Tesla for billions of dollars in order to pay for his acquisition of Twitter. As a result, Tesla’s stock has dropped 11% in the previous month. But when the survey findings were made public, Tesla shares increased by 5% in premarket trade.
“This has been a black eye moment for Musk and been a major overhang on Tesla’s stock which continues to suffer in a brutal way since the Twitter soap opera began with brand deterioration related to Musk a real issue,” Ives said in a note to clients Monday.
But Musk will very definitely continue to determine the company’s course, CEO title or not. Musk disbanded Twitter’s board of directors and eliminated its C-Suite after assuming control of the firm.
Musk has the authority to name the next CEO and direct that person’s actions while serving in that capacity as the company’s single board director and owner.
Musk hired VCs and friends to work with him in place of Twitter’s previous leadership while he considered a number of big changes to the firm.
On the list are investor Jason Calacanis, Craft Ventures partner David Sacks, and Sriram Krishnan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who specializes in cryptocurrencies and was once in charge of Twitter’s consumer teams.
Some of those people might now be on the shortlist to succeed Musk as CEO if he follows through on his commitment to do so.
Shortly after Musk published his most recent poll, Calacanis published his own asking who should lead Twitter going forward: Calacanis, Sacks, or both Calacanis and Sacks. As of the time of publication, the fourth choice, “Other,” was far and away the winner.
