Tech billionaire Elon Musk could be down a post in a matter of hours: the vote over his stay as Twitter boss with more than 15 million votes tends to suggest that someone else could soon be CEO of the short message service.
Less than two months after Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and then named himself CEO of the company, he is putting his fate at the company in the hands of users.
In a poll, the tech billionaire is having his 122 million followers vote on his future with the short message service: "Should I resign as boss? I'll stick to the results," he wrote on Twitter that night. Users can vote "Yes" or "No". Almost two hours before the voting ends and around 15.6 million votes cast later, more than 57 percent of the participants voted yes.
When a lead of yes votes was foreseeable after 20 minutes, Musk responded to rumors that he had already chosen a new CEO: "Nobody wants the job that can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor." So far it is still unclear who would replace Musk as boss.
Musk was in Qatar to watch the World Cup final between Argentina and France. He tweeted the poll after the game. He also pledged to hold a vote on any major policy changes in the future and apologized for not having done so.
Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at US investment firm Wedbush Securities, told the British BBC he believes Musk's willingness to step down may be because the Twitter-related controversy has started to hurt his "gold child": Tesla . He assumes that the vote will ultimately lead to "the end of Musk's reign as CEO of Twitter".
"Twitter is a quicksand situation right now and I think it's gotten worse since Musk took over Twitter. It's a circus act," he added. "I think Musk is likely to appoint a new interim CEO of Twitter in the next 24 hours."
