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Elon Musk asked if he should stay as Twitter CEO - and users said no

Elon Musk

A poll set up by Elon Musk has perhaps not gone the way he wants, with the majority voting in favor of his removal as CEO of Twitter.

Following a considerable number of changes to try and improve Twitter after buying it, Elon Musk bluntly asked its users whether or not he should be in control of the company. The Internet voted in favor of his removal.

The vote, which went live on Sunday evening, asked the question "Should I step down as head of Twitter?," along with the insistence Musk will "abide by the results of this poll." The vote was not close — the final results on Monday morning had 57.5% say "Yes" to ousting Musk, versus 42.5% voting "No."

The poll lasted 12 hours, was hosted on Musk's own Twitter account, and had 17,502,391 votes.

Musk's question was asked in the aftermath of a policy change for the company, which effectively banned users from linking to a number of other social platforms. Musk responded to the public condemnation of the change by stating "going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won't happen again."

The next immediate tweet was Musk's stepping-down poll.

Despite saying he would abide by the results, there is nothing stopping Musk from ignoring the vote itself and carrying on, but it seems there may be something on the horizon. After launching the poll, Musk offered a warning to voters "As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it."

There is no succession plan, and no obvious candidate for CEO.