OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Twitter boss Elon Musk has agreed to step away as CEO of the social media platform he bought for $44 billion over the summer, but only on one major condition: Namely, he says he will remain in his post until he can find the right person to fill the position.
Musk, who is also CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla, as well as SpaceX, took to his platform on Tuesday to lay out his conditions following a poll he posted earlier in the week in which he asked users if he should step away or remain as company boss.
“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 stay on.
On Tuesday, he added: “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers team.”
I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022
Also Tuesday, Musk noted: “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.”
Following the poll’s results, other users made what Musk appeared to believe were valid points about who actually drove the results of the survey, which may have also led to 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 noted in response.
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
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
Musk’s search for a replacement comes as his platform continues to reveal how much influence the FBI and other federal agencies had over the previous management, which cooperated with the agencies to censor content and ban users, mostly conservatives.
The newest batch of “Twitter Files” showed that messages were sent on Teleporter, which is a one-way communications platform where the FBI sends messages to Twitter, by FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan prior to the Hunter Biden laptop story being buried.
The message was sent to the man who was Twitter’s head of site integrity, Yoel Roth. And it came hours after Hunter Biden’s attorney, George Mesires, contacted Delaware computer store owner, John Paul (J.P.) Mac Isaac, who had the laptop.
“The next day, October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Every single fact in it was accurate,” reporter Michael Shellenberger said, adding that those researching the Twitter files have found evidence of “an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms.”
“During all of 2020, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Yoel Roth to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian ‘hack and leak’ operation,” he said.
And there was no evidence that any of it was based on new evidence of Russian interference.
“Were the FBI warnings of a Russian hack-and-leak operation relating to Hunter Biden based on *any* new intel? No, they weren’t ‘Through our investigations, we did not see any similar competing intrusions to what had happened in 2016,’ admitted FBI agent Elvis Chan in Nov,” he added.
