Elon Musk launches Twitter poll to determine his position as CEO

Elon Musk, the owner of the social media site Twitter, is soliciting votes from users on whether he should continue serving as its CEO.

He tweeted: “Should I step down as head… I will abide by the results,” to his 122 million followers.

Since taking control of Twitter, the tech tycoon, who also owns Tesla and Space X, has come under heavy fire.

After a court battle, Mr. Musk purchased the business for $44 billion ($36 billion) in October.

More than 13 million people had voted in his poll as of 07:00 GMT on Monday, and 57% of them supported Mr. Musk’s resignation.

According to Dan Ives, senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, the vote would “ultimately” result in the “ending of Musk’s reign as CEO of Twitter.”

Since Mr. Musk purchased the social media platform in October, Twitter has undergone a flurry of contentious changes.

He has let go of about half of the company’s employees and halted the paid-for verification feature that Twitter was about to roll out. Last week, the feature was reintroduced.

Additionally, he has come under fire for how he handles content moderation, with some civil liberties groups charging him with taking actions that will encourage hate speech and false information.

The European Union and United Nations condemned Elon Musk on Friday for Twitter’s decision to suspend some journalists who cover the social media company.

Some of those who had their accounts locked out for allegedly sharing location data were journalists for the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post. Since then, the accounts have been restored.

While the EU threatened Twitter with sanctions, the UN tweeted that media freedom is “not a toy.”

The past few weeks and months, according to Mr. Ives, have been “a black eye for Musk and a black eye for Tesla,” the company he called the “golden child” because it houses the majority of the billionaire’s wealth.