Elon Musk Under Pressure To Quit Twitter
Musk's time at Twitter has been marred by controversy with changes ranging from...
Marvin Chege 
The stint of Elon Musk, the world's second richest person and Chief Twit as Twitter Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is poised to come to an end, a month after he bought the company for Ksh5 trillion.
Over 17 million Twitter users for the better part of 24 hours conspired to kick out Musk, who is also the boss of car maker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX, after he posted a poll asking for their opinion on his exit.
He noted on Monday morning, December 19 that he will live up to the outcome of the poll and leave the platform as its CEO.
“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” Musk promised.
Results of a poll by Elon Musk created on December 19, 2022. /TWITTER
The poll which has since closed down saw 57.5 per cent of the 17.5 million people vote in favour of his ouster with 42.5 per cent voting for him to remain in his capacity, despite the controversy he has generated to the platform since his takeover.
This means over 10 million people, according to quick calculations, voted in favour of his ouster while the remaining 7.5 million were against him leaving.
Nonetheless, Musk by the time of publishing did not respond officially to the outcome of the 12-hour Twitter poll and it remains unclear whether or not he will appoint a CEO to replace him.
“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive,” he teased later.
“As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it."
"Those who want power are the ones who least deserve it."
Musk's time at Twitter has been marred by controversy with changes ranging from sacking half of its staff, readmitting far-right figures to the platform, banning journalists and trying to charge for previously free services almost turning him into the social media network's antagonist.
In discussions with users after posting his latest poll, Musk claimed he had no successor in mind and renewed his warnings that the platform could be heading for bankruptcy.
Musk had previously tried to extinguish the fire he started out of another controversy that would have pitted him against nearly all the users. On Sunday, December 18, Twitter users were threatened with being banned from the platform for promoting content from other social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
The platform seemed to reverse course a few hours later, writing that the policy would be limited to "suspending accounts only when that account's *primary* purpose is the promotion of competitors".
"Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won't happen again," Musk tweeted.
The attempted ban had prompted howls of disapproval and even bemused Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who had backed Musk's takeover.
On Tuesday, November 1, he revealed that he would start charging monthly fees to users verified on Twitter, threatening to take away their blue checkmarks if they did not comply with the new rules.
The launch of Twitter Verified was paused multiple times to address certain issues but by the time of publishing, he had started rolling out a new strategy that will see the implementation of different colour checkmarks to separate individual Twitter accounts and organizations.
"Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates. Painful, but necessary," he stated.
In terms of staff working at the platform, Musk introduced drastic measures that included the laying off of more than half of Twitter's workforce and forcing other employees to commit to "extremely hardcore" work or be fired.
He was accosted by journalists on a Twitter Space he was in recently, which led to disruptions and a temporary shut down of the audio feature before it was revived.
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