When Elon Musk finally clinched the deal to buy Twitter, those of us concerned about censorship on the platform breathed a sigh of relief: finally someone who would bring balance to the force. After all the meddling of the past few years – the banning of right-leaning accounts, the politically motivated ‘fact-checks’, the one-sided interference – we assumed the platform was now in safe hands.
Musk’s first few weeks at the helm have been far from perfect: some accounts were suspended that didn’t deserve to be; links to other social media platforms were banned, sparking a backlash; and the rules seemed to be changing day-by-day or even hour-by-hour. But he is a quick learner, we thought, and he’d soon get into his stride.
So it was with some surprise that we learned Musk was putting his leadership to a vote. On December 19th, he posted the following tweet:
After 17.5 million votes, 57.5% said he should step down – versus only 42.5% who wanted him to continue as head of Twitter.
The next day, however, the market research firm HarrisX announced they had run a proper poll, with a very different result: 61% of U.S. Twitter users (and 53% of U.S. adults) wanted Musk to stay on as head of Twitter. HarrisX used systematic sampling and weighting to make sure their sample was nationally representative.
Of course, lack of representativeness isn’t the only reason why Musk’s poll got a different result. His was open to anyone in any country, whereas HarrisX’s poll was only open to U.S. adults. Having said that, America has by far the most active Twitter users, and may account for the majority of those who speak English and take an interest in company leadership.
Interestingly, Musk himself responded to HarrisX on Twitter. “Suggest that maybe we might still have an itsy bitsy bot problem on Twitter”, he said. Some other large accounts, such as ‘internet entrepreneur’ Kim Dotcom, had already claimed that bots might have skewed the results of his poll.
Does this mean Musk isn’t stepping down after all? Apparently not: seven hours after replying to HarrisX, Musk confirmed, “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” He added, “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”
Given that Musk is already CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, President of the Musk Foundation and father to ten children, he must be a busy man. Conspiracy theorists might wonder whether he fixed the poll result himself once he realised how much of a headache running Twitter would be.
In any event, Musk’s purchase looks to be a big net plus from a free speech standpoint. He’s ditched the ‘Trust and Safety’ council, reinstated a bunch of banned accounts, and disclosed the Twitter Files to the world. Three Cheers! Let’s hope his replacement follows in the same tradition.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
LOL!
https://babylonbee.com/news/elon-to-stay-as-twitter-ceo-after-counting-mail-in-votes
“….Initially the poll seemed to indicate that the majority of users and bots wish me gone, but that was a mirage,” said Musk as he emerged from a dark, windowless room with stacks of ballots. “It looks like we got an overnight dump of 2 million mail-in votes that all say they want me to stay in charge of Twitter! Imagine that! Vox Populi Vox Dei!”
The dump reportedly came after millions of people around the world realized they had missed the Twitter poll and desperately sent in hand-written appeals begging the eccentric billionaire to keep running Twitter. “Please Mr. Musk! Don’t leave! Twitter is fun now! PLEASE!” read one earnest note.”
I don’t have a Twitter account and never will if Musk steps down! So take note Mr Musk, you have been warned!
Musk was planning on getting in a CEO right from the outset. He owns the company and will be Chairman.
Some of the stuff I’ve seen written on this by leftists who have no clue about business is hysterical to read, thinking Musk has shot himself in the foot. They have no understanding about business structure and what ownership means. I’ve explained it thusly in a couple of other comments. In business you have three positions where the functions overlap. Chairman, CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and optionally COO (Chief Operating Officer).
When you have a high level CEO, usually a star player with experience who has been brought in to apply his knowledge at a high level, he will take on more of the responsibilities of a Chairman and leave day to day running of the company, such as HR and all but the biggest deals to a COO. The opposite scenario is oftentimes you have a young CEO, who needs to get experience actually running a company. He will often act at a lower level more like a COO, with the Chairman, usually provided by the investors, stepping in to guide and give higher level CEO guidance on the biggest deals, strategy etc.
Musk has FOUR businesses. Tesla, Space X, The Boring Company and Twitter.
He owns the company and was ALWAYS, going to step back and be more the Chairman and cherry pick just the bits he wants to focus on. Anyone who thinks he held this poll on a whim and that it was a stupid bet to nothing really doesn’t have a clue.
Spot on, I reckon.
Musk’s companies are on government contracts and that’s why he knows it’s too dangerous to disclose too much in order not to loose money and position or worse to be epsteined. He knew there were bots and he wouldn’t have done the poll if he wanted to stay. But bots it was for sure.
This is why Musk knows how ESG works and knows how through lobbying the playing field is titled so all the money flows to the billionaire investors, much of it private equity investment. and why when he says ESG is a huge scam he knows what he is talking about. Of course he’s going to take advantage where he can, but I do think he is genuinely interested in doing his bit for free speech. I’m hoping he has enough money he figures, “what the hell, I can make a real difference.” Why else would he be doing so much that gets up the nose of Democrats given they are the current administration?
yes, Musk has done some useful things for the free speech already and I hope there will be more. just that when you’re part of the system, how long you can speak your mind w/o conforming.
Does Musk really think that electric cars will make a difference in terms of global CO2 emission reduction? He most likely doesn’t but he won’t say as it will hurt his business.
I agree. His maverick mindset leads me to think he probably doesn’t believe it.
“Does Musk really think that electric cars will make a difference in terms of global CO2 emission reduction?”
Yes he does. Electricity can be produced (and increasingly is produced) without putting CO2 into the atmosphere. Even if the electricity is produced from 100% fossil fuels, an electric vehicle still emits less CO2 per mile, because power stations are way more efficient than fossil fuel vehicle engines.
There is no such thing as a petrol/diesel vehicle that does not emit CO2. Putting CO2 sequestration on the exhaust pipe is not practical.
I guess so, he’s privy to much more detail re: twitter than we are, but wouldn’t a poll of such politicisation and relative importance be a good tool to flush out said bots?
maybe he was doing it to reveal the bots as well, just wondering if it is at all possible to get rid of them completely without linking accounts to digital IDs of some kind.
Why do people pushing digital ID imagine that they can’t be falsified or hacked, just like any other method of ID.?
I can’t believe that you all believe free speech is really going to benefit long term from Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Don’t you all realise he is cult owned? There is some agenda playing out here and it won’t be to our advantage, I can assure you! Wake up! And listen to Hugo Talks on Musk. But also listen to Musk’s words in the past and look at his actions, his companies.
Twitter is a private company 100% owned by Musk. CEO is management. Whether Musk is CEO or not, he will still determine policy and direction. It seems quite a few people don’t understand that.
Given that Musk is CEO of other companies and has hinted he may step down as CEO of Tesla, the Twitter poll against him is what he plans to do anyway perhaps.
Also it may have been an opportunity to reveal those bots.