Elon Musk to quit as Twitter CEO as he hints at a bot attack

Washington, Dec 21: Elon Musk has said that he will step down as the CEO of Twitter after 57.5 per cent of people voted in favour of his exit in a poll that he run on his personal account.

However, the multi-billionaire claimed that he will quit once he finds "someone foolish enough" to replace him. He also stated that he will run the software and server teams.

"I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams," Musk wrote on Twitter.

I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022

Musk, apparently, doubted the reliability of a Twitter poll and he posted, "bots", indicating it might have been rigged.

He had run a poll asking people: Should I step down as head of Twitter? and promised his followers that he will "abide by the results of this poll."

The poll garnered 17,502,391 votes out of which 57.5 per cent said that they do not want him to continue as the CEO while 42.5 per cent of respondents gave a thumbs-up for him.

However, some of his followers were not impressed with his decision. A user said, "This is complete madness. Is the goal to please the crowd or to make QUALITY DECISIONS? Since when does increasing the number of decision-makers increase the quality of the decision-making? What the world needs is a #PhilosopherKing, not a crowd-pleasing "leader".

"Of course the mastermind behind Operation Warp Speed wants you to step down from Twitter," a netizen expressed his anguish. "Please, don't do it," a fan appealed.

"Twitter needs you or else it will become ruled by the libs and FBI again," another one wrote.

Twitter Poll Rigged?
Musk's comment on 'bots' gained credence as polling company HarrisX on Tuesday tweeted out their own poll of Twitter users, in which 61 per cent of respondents voted to keep Musk as CEO.

"The findings of the study debunk the results of Elon Musk's Twitter poll on whether or not he should step down as CEO, and provide a representative, statistically relevant perspective of what Twitter users and Americans think of his leadership. A majority would like Mr. Musk to remain on as head of Twitter, with over 6 in 10 Twitter users expressing that sentiment," said Dritan Nesho, CEO of HarrisX and chief researcher.

"We developed the HarrisX Overnight Poll, the only true overnight solution in the market research industry - and one with a deep track record of accuracy in difficult-to-call situations, such as having been the most accurate political poll of the 2020 U.S. presidential election - precisely for these types of situations. Our goal is to give a fast and reliable feedback mechanism to business leaders and public policy decision-makers so they have the best information from customers, voters, and the general public at their fingertips, and in a scientifically sound way. We will continue to cover Twitter and Mr. Musk's actions as his work on the organization plays out," Nesho added.

On the other hand, CNBC and Bloomberg reported that the Tesla CEO, who became the sole owner of Twitter on October 27, is in search of his replacement, citing anonymous sources, but debunked the report with a laughing emoji on Twitter.