Elon Musk to ‘step down’ as head of Twitter after users vote him out

Elon Musk has said he will step down as the head of Twitter after millions of Twitter users voted for him to leave the role.

“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” he tweeted on Sunday night.

More than 17 million people voted in the 12-hour poll, with the majority voting ‘Yes’.

“As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it,” he tweeted.

It is not clear who the successor will be, with Mr Musk claiming: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive.”

Among those offering their services was computer scientist and podcast host Lex Fridman.

“Let me run Twitter for a bit,” he tweeted to Musk on Sunday night. “No salary. All in. Focus on great engineering and increasing the amount of love in the world. Just offering my help in the unlikely case it’s useful.”

Mr Musk, who has appeared on Mr Fridman’s podcast multiple times, responded: “You must like pain a lot. One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Still want the job?”

It brings an end to a controversial reign as the boss of the social media firm, having acquired it in a $44 billion deal in October. Mr Musk remains the majority stakelholder and owner of the platform.

“Even if he steps down as CEO, Musk will still be pulling the strings at Twitter, that much is for sure,” Jukka Väänänen, CEO of the PR platform Newspage, told The Independent.

“Whether you believe Musk is genuinely aspiring to create a digital town square, or is turning Twitter into a 1970s banana republic, truth is it’s Musk’s gig and he’s going nowhere.”