The tech billionaire has drawn a lot of criticism since taking over Twitter.
(Photo: Reuters)
Dusseldorf The message is clear: 57.5 percent of the total more than 17.5 million participants in a survey are in favor of Elon Musk’s resignation as Twitter boss. The 51-year-old started the debate on Monday night with a tweet: “Should I resign as head of Twitter? I will follow the poll result.” Users could answer “Yes” or “No”.
Some Tesla shareholders may have been present at the vote. Musk is also the head of the US electric car manufacturer. Tesla investors have been worried for a long time that the capers at the short message service mean that the billionaire can no longer concentrate on his tasks at the car manufacturer.
“Elon failed Tesla,” said Leo Koguan, Tesla’s largest private investor. With the voting result on Twitter, Tesla shares rose by almost five percent premarket on Monday.
Some experts responded to the survey by shaking their heads. “Since when does the head of a private company ask his customers whether he should remain in office?” says Jan-Hinrik Schmidt, senior researcher for digital interactive media and political communication at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research.
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It is not so unlikely that Musk will accept the result. A few weeks ago, he said, “I plan to cut back on my time on Twitter and eventually find someone else to run Twitter,” he said at a lawsuit.
Elon Musk is the most powerful person on Twitter even after his resignation
Even without his managerial post, Musk would remain the most powerful man on Twitter, after all he owns the company. The question is rather: When can he resign? Twitter is currently a big construction site.
The short message service has been going through difficult times since the takeover at the end of October for $44 billion. Musk laid off more than half of the workforce, and advertisers canceled their orders out of concern for their reputation. The advertising boycott hit Twitter hard because the company made around 89 percent of its sales of $ 5.1 billion in 2021 with ads.
“The survey is nothing more than further evidence that Musk really wants to be the center of attention,” says media expert Schmidt. “It doesn’t change Twitter’s many problems.”
Elon Musk had journalists’ Twitter accounts blocked
According to Schmidt, Twitter faces two challenges. On the one hand, the company was “emptied” by the many departures, important relationships with advertisers and supervisory authorities had been lost. In addition, Musk’s erratic behavior is damaging to the brand. “That destroys important trust,” says the media expert.
In the past few days alone, Twitter has blocked the accounts of various US journalists and banned links to other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Mastodon. There was massive criticism from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and politicians like Věra Jourová, Vice President for Values and Transparency in the EU Commission. Musk then reopened some of the accounts.
The back and forth was too much even for Musk. “I apologize. It won’t happen again,” Musk wrote on Monday night. He promised to do a vote on all important issues beforehand – to start the poll about his resignation a short time later.
More: Elon Musk is no longer the richest person in the world