Elon Musk latest news: Twitter CEO quiet after users vote to him

Elon Musk still has not addressed the results of a poll in which a significant majority of the more than 17m respondents voted to remove him as head of Twitter.

Mr Musk promised to “abide by the results” of the poll asking “Should I step down as head of Twitter?” but he’s tweeted just twice today in its aftermath — retweeting a Michael Shellenberger tweet about the so-called Twitter Files and a SpaceX tweet about the satellite internet service Starlink.

Mr Musk has not said anything publicly about whether he will follow through on his promise and remove himself from operating the social media platform he bought less than two months ago.

Sen Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has written to the chair of the board at Tesla requesting answers on how the board is overseeing Mr Musk’s leadership of the company after his Twitter takeover.

Ms Warren, a progressive who has clashed with Mr Musk in the past, raised questions about Tesla’s handling of Mr Musk’s “conflicts of interest, misappropriation of corporate assets, and other actions by Mr. Musk.” Musk that appears not to be in the best interests of Tesla and its shareholders.”

Tesla stock has plummeted since Mr Musk bought Twitter, while Mr Musk has reportedly asked Tesla employees to help him restructure the social media company’s corporate structure.

In her letter to Robyn Denholm, Ms Warren wrote that she is concerned Tesla’s board “has failed to meet its legal duty” to ensure that Mr Musk is acting in the best interests of the publicly-traded company. She is requesting a response by January 3.

It’s not just Twitter users that disapprove with Elon Musk apparently — employees are also unimpressed with the tech billionaire, according to the latest figures from company review site Glassdoor.

CEO approval among Twitter employees is just 21 per cent, having been at 90.5 per cent at the start of the year.

The company’s overall rating has also dropped from 4.2 out of 5 in January 2022 to 3.6 out of five today.

Was Elon Musk’s poll a pretext for something else? What does it realistically mean for Twitter and its owner?

We’ve heard from Stuart Skinner, group managing director at digital agency The PHA Group, who has offered his analysis on the move:

Elon Musk is currently trending on Twitter, according to global trends. Other terms like ‘Twitter CEO’ are also popular, as people speculate who might take over from the tech billionaire.

A lot of the tweets pushing the Twitter owner’s name to the top of trends are fairly critical of Musk, though some are at least attempting to take the positives from the poll.

“If Elon Musk steps down today, he’ll have been in charge of Twitter four days longer than Liz Truss was officially in office as Prime Minister,” tweeted journalist Nick Stylianou.

A lot has happened in the 53 days since Elon Musk announced his takeover of Twitter.

You can read the full timeline here, but here are some highlights:

October 27: Mr Musk tweets a video of himself walking into Twitter HQ carrying a sink with the caption “let that sink in” as he takes control of the company after a protracted and often tense takeover process. Then, in his first act as owner, Mr Musk sacks several top executives.

November 4: Twitter begins laying off more than half of its global workforce by sending out blanket emails to staff as part of what the company calls necessary cost-cutting – legal action from staff around the world follows claiming breaches of employment law.

November 11: Twitter Blue’s rollout is paused after a number of incidents of impersonation, with bad actors posing as verified public figures and tweeting offensive and inappropriate content. Mr Musk later says it will return once improvements have been made.

November 16: In an email to the company’s remaining staff, the billionaire workers tell them they must agree to be more “hardcore” and work longer, more intense hours in order to build “Twitter 2.0”. Mr Musk says staff who do not agree to this ultimatum will be let go.

—November 20: The Twitter boss reinstates the account of former US president Donald Trump after asking Twitter users to vote on the issue.

—November 30: Amid rising concerns around Twitter’s content moderation approach, EU officials warn Mr Musk that Twitter must comply with its new online safety rules or face being banned.

– December 13: Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, an advisory group of nearly 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that helps the firm combat harmful content on the site, is dissolved.

– December 16Twitter suspends the accounts of a number of journalists who had written about Mr Musk and his banning of an account that used publicly available information to track the flights made by his private jet.

December 18: The site says it will no longer allow links to certain other social media platforms to be posted – including Facebook and Instagram, as well as possible rivals such as Mastodon.

December 19: Mr Musk says he will abide by a new poll in which he asks if he should step down as the head of Twitter.

The final results of Elon Musk’s poll show that 57.5 percent of the 17,502,391 respondents voted for him to step down as head of Twitter.

That’s just over 10 million people wanting him gone.

Elon Musk is usually a man of his word, especially when it comes to Twitter polls.

In November 2021, he sold 10 per cent of his Tesla stock after asking his followers whether he should do so in order to pay the tax.

He also typically acts within a couple of days, though this time might be a bit trickier. It’s unlikely he will step aside until a replacement is found, though he has so far turned down everyone who has made a somewhat serious offer, at least publicly.

His unorthodox approach to leading companies could even throw up more surprises, with leadership decisions handed to some form of AI, or even a never-ending series of Twitter polls.

“Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” he tweeted last month.

Elon Musk has not tweeted in more than nine hours and is yet to respond to the results of the poll, which is now officially closed.

He may well be sleeping, having been last spotted at the World Cup final in Qatar last night alongside former presidential advisor and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

His last tweet (which wasn’t a reply) was: “Those who want power are the ones who least deserve it.”