Elon Reeve Musk to Step Down as Twitter CEO

In a referendum that the billionaire entrepreneur promised to respect, Twitter users chose Elon Reeve Musk to stand down from his position as the social platform’s Chief Executive Officer, potentially depriving the business of senior leadership.

Of the 17.5 million votes cast, around 58% were in favour of Musk stepping down as CEO. Although Musk stated he would follow the results, there was no quick word from Twitter or Musk on whether that would actually happen.

Musk has had numerous run-ins with users, and on Sunday, he asked Twitter users to determine whether or not he should continue to run the social media site after admitting he erred in imposing new speech rules that forbade mentions of competing social media platforms.

Immediate backlash

But because of the immediate backlash that decision received, especially from some who had previously supported Twitter’s new billionaire owner, Elon Reeve Musk pledged to refrain from making any other significant policy changes without first conducting an online user survey.

After shutting down a Twitter account last week that was monitoring the travels of his private jet, Musk took the measure to ban competitors as his most recent attempt to stifle particular expression.

Popular websites like Facebook and Instagram were among the prohibited domains, along with upstart competitors Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post, and the Truth Social platform run by former President Donald Trump.

Since this practise is so common, it would have been challenging to impose the limitations on Twitter’s millions of users worldwide. Twitter had previously stated that it would at least temporarily suspend accounts that contain the prohibited domains in their profile. According to the firm, attempts to circumvent the block by spelling out “instagram dot com” might have resulted in a suspension in addition to links.

Paul Graham test case

Paul Graham, a well-known venture capitalist, served as a test case. Graham had previously lauded Musk, but on Sunday he told his 1.5 million Twitter followers that this was the “last straw” and to find him on Mastodon.

After its main Twitter account tweeted about the @ElonJet dispute last week, Twitter previously taken action to ban links to Mastodon. Mastodon has seen significant growth in recent weeks as a substitute for Twitter users dissatisfied with Elon Reeve Musk’s changes to the platform since he paid $44 billion for the company in late October and started restoring accounts that broke the previous Twitter leadership’s rules against hate speech and other harms.

Musk modified Twitter’s policies on Wednesday to make it against the law to share another person’s present location without that person’s permission. He also permanently banned the @ElonJet account. Then, he launched an attack on the media, claiming that they were broadcasting “essentially assassination coordinates” when they were writing about the jet-tracking account, which is still active on other social media platforms.