Elon Musk to step down as head of Twitter if poll holds

Owner asks users if he should stay in charge of the social media platform after acknowledging he made a mistake on Sunday

Jared Kushner and Elon Musk watch the Fifa World Cup final match between Argentina and France. Getty Images

Mr Musk attends model and businesswoman Heidi Klum's 2022 Halloween party at Moxy Lower East Side, in New York City Getty

Mr Musk on stage next to Optimus the humanoid robot in Palo Alto, California, in September 2022 AFP

Mr Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing 'Cyber Rodeo' grand opening party, in Austin, Texas, in 2022 AFP

Mr Musk shakes hands with Brazil's then president Jair Bolsonaro, at the event Conecta Amazonia in Porto Feliz, Sao Paulo state, in 2022 AFP

Mr Musk and his mother, Maye Musk, arrive for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in 2022 AFP

Mr Musk attends the start of the production at Tesla's Gigafactory in Gruenheide, in 2022 AFP

Mikey Day as a lawyer, Cecily Strong as a judge, and host Mr Musk as Wario during the 'Wario' sketch on NBC's 'Saturday Night Live', in 2021 Getty

Mr Musk and son X Æ A-12 onstage at 'Time' Person of the Year in New York, in 2021 AFP

Mr Musk dancing onstage during a delivery event for Tesla's China-made Model 3 cars in Shanghai, in 2021 Reuters

Mr Musk with Armin Laschet, at the time CDU party federal chairman and prime minister of Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia, at the Tesla Gigafactory in Gruenheide, in 2021 Getty

Mr Musk at the construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, in 2020 EPA

Mr Musk leaves a New York court in 2019, after a hearing in a lawsuit brought against him by the US Securities and Exchange Commission Getty

A prototype of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft in Boca Chica, Texas, in 2019 Reuters

Mr Musk and then partner Grimes at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in 2018 AFP

From left, Mr Musk, Corning chief executive Wendell Weeks, then US president Donald Trump and Johnson & Johnson chief executive Alex Gorsky at the White House, in 2017 AFP

Mr Musk presents his plan to colonise Mars at the International Astronautics Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016 EPA

Mr Musk with then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe after a test drive of the Tesla Model S P85D in Palo Alto, California, in 2015 Reuters

Mr Musk with then wife Talulah Riley at the 2011 British Academy Film Awards in London Getty

Mr Musk after Tesla's initial public offering at the Nasdaq market in New York, in 2010 Reuters

Then US president Barack Obama with Mr Musk on a tour of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2010 Reuters

Mr Musk in the Tesla Roadster electric car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, in 2009 Reuters

Mr Musk with music producer Quincy Jones at the Tesla Roadster launch party in 2008 AFP

Mr Musk answers questions about the new Tesla Model S all-electric car, at its unveiling in Hawthorne, California, in 2009 AFP

Elon Musk in Los Angeles in 2008. Getty

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in 2004 Getty

Elon Musk late on Sunday posted a poll asking users if he should step down from his role as head of Twitter, the social media platform he bought in October that has been surrounded by controversy ever since.

Early results from the poll showed about 57 per cent of respondents were in favour of Mr Musk standing down.

He posted the 12-hour survey after apologising for banning links to several “prohibited” social media platforms including Facebook in a move that drew fierce condemnation.

“My apologies. Won’t happen again,” Mr Musk tweeted around the same time he launched the poll, whose results he promised to abide by.

Mr Musk's tenure at Twitter has seen him hand several key decisions over to users, including whether former president Donald Trump's banned account should be reinstated or whether journalists accused of “doxxing” personal information should have their bans reversed.

But Mr Musk seemed to massively raise the stakes at a personal level by placing his own position at the company that cost him an initial $44 billion, and billions more since, in the hands of Twitter users.

Several poll respondents claimed Mr Musk knew it would probably oppose him remaining.

“As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it,” he tweeted, adding that he did not have a successor picked out.

Since walking into Twitter's head office in San Francisco carrying a sink in late October, barely a day has gone by without Mr Musk drawing global headlines from decisions he made, many seemingly on a whim, at the platform.

Shortly after he arrived, he fired most of the staff and openly criticised the working culture of his new company as being too “woke” and not industrious enough.

Mr Musk, who runs several other companies including Tesla and SpaceX, gave what amounted to a real-time glimpse into his combative managerial style and hit back at claims staff were sleeping in the headquarters building.

His tweets took a new turn last week as he toyed with several journalists using Twitter by banning them, then sometimes reinstating them after a backlash.

Those bans came after he shut down a Twitter account that was tracking the flights of his private jet.

Then on Sunday, in the move he later apologised for, he banned accounts linking to mainstream websites such as Facebook and Instagram, and upstart rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and Mr Trump's Truth Social.

Mr Musk has also frequently tweeted his right-wing political views, alienating a large chuck of his liberal Tesla customer base and triggering a seemingly unending sell-off in stocks of the electric car maker that has cost Mr Musk tens of billions of dollars.

Earlier this month, he attacked Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading US expert on infectious diseases in a move that the White House branded “dangerous” and “disgusting”.

A look at former president Donald Trump's Truth Social feed — in pictures