OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Twitter boss and billionaire Elon Musk revealed a few months ago that he planned to step down as CEO of the social media platform following a poll that suggested a majority of users want to see him go.
Musk took to Twitter on Tuesday to jokingly announce that there was a “new” CEO running the company — but it was a picture of a dog.
“The new CEO of Twitter is amazing,” he said, adding in another tweet, “So much better than that other guy.”
So much better than that other guy!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2023
Back in December, Musk put up a Twitter poll asking users if he should step down as the CEO.
“Should I step down as head of Twitter?” Musk asked in the now-completed survey. “I will abide by the results of this poll.” As of Monday morning, more than 17.5 million votes were cast, with 57.5 percent of respondents wanting him to step down as CEO compared to 42.5 percent who wanted him to remain.
Separately, Musk tweeted, “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
But after other users made some points about who actually drove the results of the survey, Musk appeared to have a change of heart.
“Hey @elonmusk, it’s unwise to run a poll like this when you are now deep state enemy #1,” said Kim Dotcom on Twitter. “They have the biggest bot army on Twitter. They have 100k ‘analysts’ with 30-40 accounts all voting against you. Let’s clean up and then run this poll again. The majority has faith in you.
“I’m hoping that Elon did this poll as a honeypot to catch all the deep state bots,” he added. “The dataset for this poll will contain most of them. Some good data-mining and he could kill them all in one go.”
“Interesting,” Musk responded.
I’m hoping that Elon did this poll as a honeypot to catch all the deep state bots. The dataset for this poll will contain most of them. Some good data-mining and he could kill them all in one go 🤣🤣🤣
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) December 19, 2022
Meanwhile, another user suggested that only those with Twitter Blue checkmarks should be able to vote in polls since they are paying customers, so to speak.
“Blue subscribers should be the only ones that can vote in policy related polls. We actually have skin in the game,” Unfiltered Boss said on Twitter.
Musk replied, “Good point. Twitter will make that change.”
Good point. Twitter will make that change.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2022
The CEO question came amid a backlash against Musk and Twitter after the platform announced on Sunday “saying that it was going to ban users from being able to promote their other social media accounts on other platforms,” The Daily Wire reported.
“Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post,” one of the now-deleted tweets said.
Musk eventually apologized: “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”
“We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter,” the company noted in a statement. “Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.”
The platform added that it would “remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) … or providing your handle without a URL” to the aforementioned platforms or to “3rd-party social media link aggregators such as linktr.ee, lnk.bio.”
“Additionally, any attempts to bypass restrictions on external links to the above prohibited social media platforms through technical or non-technical means (e.g. URL cloaking, plaintext obfuscation) is in violation of this policy,” the statement noted further. “This includes, but is not limited to, spelling out ‘dot’ for social media platforms that use ‘.’ in the names to avoid URL creation, or sharing screenshots of your handle on a prohibited social media platform.”
The statement went on to say that cross-posting from different platforms isn’t a violation of the policy, even from the sites that were listed. The company also said it would authorize users to pay to promote their social media accounts on other platforms, the Daily Wire noted.
It’s not clear if Musk intends to honor the results of the original poll, but from the sound of it, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO doesn’t intend to simply step down from Twitter anytime soon.
