Elon Musk Loses Twitter Voter by Wide Margin — Will He Keep His Word and Step Down Now?

Update: Twitter CEO Elon Musk asked users to decide whether or not he should step down. The 12-hour poll just ended and he “lost” by 15-points with over 17 millions votes cast. Does this mean he’s going to step down?

Yes, it almost certainly means he will. While there is a chance that he can claim the vote was driven by bots, he has thus far abided by all previous “community decisions.” But perhaps more importantly, I believe he wanted to step down. He’ll still control the company as owner, so while the new CEO will handle day-to-day affairs, he will be able to do pretty much everything he can do now without the added responsibility of steering the ship.

As I noted yesterday in the original article, if he “loses” the vote and steps down, I believe he did so intentionally. He has always pretended to be whimsical while secretly operating based on a very precise plan. Is this one of those cases? We may soon see. Then again, we may never know (as I noted below).

As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Original Article: Twitter polls are absolutely worthless. They’re unscientific, easy to manipulate, and almost always express the bias of either the person posting the poll or the group who finds the poll and hammers it with narrative-busting bot votes.

Elon Musk’s polls have proven to have teeth since he has allegedly made major company decisions based on the results. He reinstated Donald Trump and other accounts after polls, for example. But his latest poll is by far the most important. The future of the company will be determined by it.

He asked a yes or no question: “Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.”

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

As of the writing of this post, the “Yes” vote has a large lead.

Will he really step down if the poll goes that way? Yes. Can he manipulate the poll to get the results he wants? Of course. Could this be a way to justify his continued leadership so he can claim majority rule if the poll says so? Possibly. Was he already planning on stepping down and is using the poll as a way to facilitate that? Again, possibly.

As I’ve long said, Elon Musk doesn’t really make decisions based on reactions to what he posts on Twitter. He pretends to, but in at least one major case he had already made his decision before pretending to whimsically make the call based on Twitter responses. That example was the big one when he asked what should be done about Twitter after they banned the Babylon Bee. A few days after the overwhelming response that he should buy the site, he purchased over 9% and became the largest shareholder.

On the surface, it would appear that he was just a man with more money than he needed making carefree decisions based on reactions from millions of people he didn’t know. In reality, he had notified the SEC of his plans two weeks before the Tweet asking people if he should buy Twitter. It made for a great show, but it was all a smokescreen.

Is this the same thing? Is he planning on stepping down either way? If so, he will either accept the vote if it calls for him to step down or he will manipulate it so that it appears he was called to step down. Perhaps that has been the plan all along. With Elon Musk, we may never know.