Twitter users have voted in favour of Elon Musk stepping down as the platform’s chief executive after the billionaire ran a poll on his future.
A total of 57.5 per cent voted “yes” after Musk asked his 122 million followers whether he should stand down.
Musk, who bought Twitter for $44bn, said before the poll closed that he would abide by the result.
The technology tycoon, who also runs Tesla and Space X, has faced much criticism since taking over the site.
Musk is yet to comment since the poll closed. Even if he were to resign as chief executive, he would remain as Twitter’s owner.
More than 17.5 million users voted in his poll on Monday, with 42.5 per cent voting no to Musk stepping down.
In the past Musk has obeyed Twitter polls. He’s fond of quoting the phrase “vox populi, vox dei”, a Latin phrase which roughly means “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
A former Twitter member of staff, who left the company recently, told the BBC that Musk was “showing himself to be the incompetent fool we all knew he was”.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, they added: “His investors are surely looking at this now and questioning whether he was the right horse to back.
“I imagine he’s getting pressure from investors to step down and is using this poll to make it look like he’s following the will of the people instead of the will of those paying his bills.”
Minutes before the poll closed, the founder of crypto exchange Binance replied to Musk saying he should ”stay the course” and not step down.
Changpeng Zhao is thought to be one of several Twitter investors and said in May he had backed Musk taking over by making a $500m investment.
Among the backers are massive firms such as Fidelity, which is known for managing retirement accounts, and Sequoia Capital, which has backed other technology firms Apple, Google and Airbnb.
Others are thought to be Oracle co-founder and Musk’s friend, Larry Ellison, sovereign wealth fund Qatar Holding, and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. (BBC)
