Elon Musk will resign as head of the short message service Twitter – at least if he sticks to the results of a poll on Twitter, as promised. Musk had Twitter users vote on whether he should remain head of the short message service. “Should I resign as head of Twitter? I will stick to the results of this survey,” he wrote on Twitter on Monday night. Users could vote “Yes” or “No”. The result was clear. 57.5 percent of the more than 17.5 million participants voted in favor of resigning, 42.5 percent against.
There had previously been massive criticism of Twitter after the online network declared that it would no longer allow its users to advertise their presence on certain competing platforms, including Facebook, Instagram or Mastodon.
In another tweet, Musk promised to also put major policy changes for the platform up for a vote in the future. “I beg your pardon. Will not happen again.”
According to Twitter, the new policy against competing platforms applies to both tweets and the biography of your own account. In the future, Twitter will no longer allow free advertising for certain social media platforms on Twitter, it said. Musk took over Twitter in October and has since been redesigning the online service according to his ideas.
More time for Tesla?
However, a resignation as head of Twitter would probably not be inconvenient for Musk. Investors are at risk of losing patience with Musk. They fear Musk is obsessing over Twitter and neglecting his CEO position at electric carmaker Tesla. Tesla stock is down almost 60 percent this year, including around 5 percent this month alone. A departure from the operative business at Twitter should calm investors.
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Should Musk actually resign, however, it is still unclear how the company will continue. Musk would be the most powerful man on Twitter even without his managerial post, after all, he owns the company.
The fact that Musk lets the public vote on important decisions via Twitter is nothing new. For example, he had a vote on whether former US President Donald Trump could work on the short message service again. Yes, he can, was the answer with a narrow majority, whereupon Twitter unblocked the account again in November.
In the fall of 2021, Musk had a survey oblige him to sell a tenth of his Tesla stake and donate the money. At that time, Musk stuck to the result of the survey and probably donated almost six billion dollars. However, the donation could also have helped to significantly reduce Musk’s billion-dollar tax burden, according to tax experts by almost 40 to 50 percent of the amount donated. It was recently revealed that the donation appeared to go to Musk’s own charity. According to Musk’s tax return, which is expected to be available to Bloomberg, $160 million actually went to charities last year, including $55 million to Memphis-based St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
