Elon Musk posted a poll on twitter Sunday night asking if he should step down as head of Twitter, adding that regardless of the results, he would abide by them..The results are in and of the 17.5 million users who voted, about 10 million, or 57.5% voted yes..The poll closed early Monday morning with no immediate response from Musk or Twitter about what the next step might be..Musk put the poll up after acknowledging he erred in launching new speech restrictions that banned mentions of rival social media websites, saying users would no longer be able to link to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and other platforms the company described as “prohibited.”.The decision put Musk in the doghouse with users, including from those who have defended Musk in the past, resulting in Musk promising not to make any more major policy changes without an online survey of users..The action to block competitors was Musk's latest attempt to crack down on certain speech after he shut down a Twitter account last week that was tracking the flights of his private jet..The banned platforms included mainstream websites such as Facebook and Instagram, and upstart rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and former President Donald Trump's Truth Social. Twitter gave no explanation for why the blacklist included those seven websites, but not others such as Parler, TikTok or LinkedIn..The prominent venture capitalist Paul Graham, who in the past has praised Musk but on Sunday told his 1.5 million Twitter followers “this was the last straw” and to find him on Mastodon. His Twitter account was promptly suspended, and soon after restored as Musk promised to reverse the policy implemented just hours earlier..Musk said Twitter will still suspend some accounts according to the policy but “only when that account’s “*primary* purpose is promotion of competitors.”.Twitter previously took action to block links to Mastodon after its main Twitter account tweeted about the @ElonJet controversy last week. Mastodon has grown rapidly in recent weeks as an alternative for Twitter users who are unhappy with Musk’s overhaul of the social media giant Twitter since he bought the company and began restoring accounts that ran afoul of the previous Twitter leadership's rules against hateful conduct and other harms..Musk permanently banned the @ElonJet account on Wednesday, then changed Twitter's rules to prohibit the sharing of another person’s current location, known as ‘doxxing’ without their consent. He then suspended the accounts of journalists who were writing about the jet-tracking account, which can still be found on other social media sites, alleging that they were broadcasting “basically assassination coordinates.”.Among them were reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America, and other media outlets. Many of those accounts were restored following an online poll by Musk..Over the weekend, The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz was temporarily suspended for, she says, posting a message on Twitter tagging Musk and requesting an interview..Sally Buzbee, The Washington Post's executive editor, called it an “arbitrary suspension of another Post journalist” that further undermined Musk’s promise to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech..By midday Sunday, Lorenz's account was restored, as was the tweet she thought had triggered her suspension..There have been many bumps in the road of Twitter ownership for Musk..He was questioned in court on Nov. 16 about how he splits his time among Tesla and his other companies, including SpaceX and Twitter..He also had to testify in Delaware’s Court of Chancery over a shareholder’s challenge to Musk’s potential $55 billion compensation plan as CEO of the electric car company..Musk said he never intended to be CEO of Tesla, and that he didn’t want to be chief executive of any other companies either, preferring to see himself as an engineer instead..And more than a month ago, he said he expected an organizational restructuring of Twitter to be completed “in the next week or so” so his poll might signal those changes are coming.On Sunday, however, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO in a tweet, saying that person “must like pain a lot” to run a company that “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy.”.“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” he tweeted.
