Following a survey urging him to resign, Twitter’s founder Elon Musk announced in one of his first tweets that voting on important policy choices will only be open to paying Blue customers. In response to a Blue member going by the moniker Unfiltered Boss, Mr. Musk stated, “Twitter will make that change.” Mr. Musk agreed that only subscribers should have a role in future policy. A day ago, the multibillionaire CEO asked Twitter followers if he should resign from his position and promised to put any future policy choices up for a vote.
More than 10 million followers, or 57.5 per cent, were in favour of Mr Musk relinquishing his role as head of Twitter.
He committed to abide by the result when he launched the poll. However, nearly a day later, he had tweeted more than 10 times without directly addressing the outcome.
Mr Musk responded to a tweet suggesting the poll may have been manipulated by bots with a single word: “Interesting”.
His offer to step down came shortly after he attended the Fifa World Cup final match in Qatar, triggering a wave of trending topics such as “Vote Yes” and “CEO of Twitter”.
He did not identify an alternative leader and went so far as to say anyone capable of doing the job wouldn’t want it.
Mr Musk warned that Twitter is at risk of bankruptcy and instituted a “hardcore” work environment for the remaining workers after a drastic cutback in staff.
In his less than two months at the helm, he has spooked advertisers, alienated Twitter’s most ardent creators and turned the service from a reflection of the news of the day into the main topic.
After losing the initial poll, Mr Musk, who is also chief executive of electric vehicle maker Tesla, retweeted promotional material for the car company and for Twitter’s Blue for Business service.
He also responded to an article about rival Toyota Motor’s criticism of electric vehicles with a simple “Wow”.
The stock of Tesla, by far Mr Musk’s most valuable holding, has plummeted since the Twitter acquisition and critics have said that he is spending too much time on the social media company.