It appears Elon Musk plans to abide by the results of a poll in which he asked whether he should step down as CEO of Twitter.
After 57% of respondents answered in the affirmative, Musk confirmed he will find a successor. The poll received over 17.5 million votes.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Musk launched the Twitter poll as pressure and criticism mounted over his handling of Twitter and alleged neglect of his leadership at Tesla. The automobile and clean energy company has seen its shares drop over 65% this year.
Musk, whose background is in engineering, will maintain control over Twitter’s engineering teams. Since taking over the company, he has overseen the firing or departures of nearly two-thirds of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, according to Bloomberg.
Even if he does follow through with the decision to step down, some are not convinced he will relinquish much power.
“Given that the social networking site is mainly made up of software and servers (especially after the massive layoffs), it’s clear Musk will still have direct control over the company, even if he doesn’t have the explicit CEO Title,” wrote Mitchell Clark on tech blog The Verge.
Shortly after the conclusion of the poll, Musk said he would resign as CEO as soon as he “find[s] someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers’ teams.”
He also said that in the future, Twitter will restrict voting on major policy decisions to paying Twitter Blue users, numbering 140,000 subscribers as of November 15, according to The New York Times.
This was not the first time Twitter was responsible for a shakeup in one of Elon Musk’s executive titles. He was forced to resign in 2018 as Chairman of the Board of Tesla due to his tweeting habits.
As to Musk’s possible replacement, former PayPal executive David Sacks and Jason Calacanis, an investor and podcaster, are among Musk’s close circle and have been floated as possible candidates.
Both men were part of Elon Musk’s war room in the days after his deal for Twitter closed. In that capacity, they were given internal accounts and helped make decisions about who would keep their jobs.