The people of Twitter have spoken, and Elon Musk is not their CEO
Last night, Elon Musk shared a poll to the platform asking users if he should remain CEO—and, by popular vote, the masses ousted him
Aux News Twitter
Could Twitter finally become the one institute in America that actually values the popular vote? Via a poll posted last night to his personal account, Twitter head honcho Elon Musk directly asked platform users if they wanted him to remain the company’s CEO—and they said no.
“Should I step down as head of Twitter?” Musk questioned. “I will abide by the results of this poll.” The poll received over 17.5 million votes. The result? 57.5% of voters want to see Musk gone, and 42.5% are willing to let him stay. The replies to the post are equally divided and often descended into decidedly born-online infighting.
Since the deal between Twitter and Musk became official back in April, Musk has struggled to connect with his audience. Introducing inane policy changes, suspending journalists who criticized him, and abruptly laying off staff didn’t exactly help the temperature.
Although Musk claimed he would abide by whatever the poll revealed, no official moves have been made yet. There’s also no clear indication as to who, exactly, would replace Musk if he were to make an abrupt departure, though he did claim after launching the poll that “there is no successor.”
But just because Musk has agreed to the people’s will doesn’t mean he doesn’t have classically cryptic, annoying, and quotable things to say about it. In one tweet immediately following the poll, Musk mused: “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.” Ok Nicole Scherzinger!
Like with most changes on Twitter of late, a Musk departure feels like a watch-and-wait situation: this could either be real, or another online antic he can add to his treasure trove of trolls. Even during the late October layoffs, when it felt like almost the entire platform tweeted their goodbyes, the platform prevailed— whether or not Musk will remain at the helm just remains to be seen.
96 Comments
Would it matter? Doesn’t he still own the fucking thing? I feel like Elon Musk starts hyperventilating if he doesn’t see himself in any given news cycle and this is just one way of scoring his media fentanyl.
Yep.He’s the demigod of the weird, antisocial, “based” 8chan/8kun set, and yet Musk so clearly and deeply wants to be revered.
No “yet” necessary; despite what they say, attention and approval is exactly what that set is looking for.
His “be careful what you wish for” messaging is probably meant as a “you’ll see! You’ll all see!” given his whole vibe, but it can more comfortably be read as the moral of the story of a man who got to be the center of the whole world’s attention for a few months, rapidly driving himself insane.
Anyway, it’s a far cry from the “voice of the people is the voice of God” position he took when he was using polls to reinstate Trump. It’s weird that he runs a communication service and speaks mostly in platitudes and cliches right? Not just me?
Oh yeah, dude straight-up sucks.
“You’ll see! You’ll ALL See!” as the microchip in his brain initiates the signal and all the Skynet Starlink satellites spin to align their solar panels and focus sunlight into fiery death from above. Meanwhile every Tesla on the road goes into Cylon mode…
He is the God of the Greys as well. I longe to live in a message board system where you are forced to witness every deeply stupid hot take I post.
Yep he’s an attention whore who is basically Dunning Kruger personified.
How long will he own it, though? Ever since he got booed by 18,000 people Elon’s been acting erratic. I wonder if he doesn’t just freak out, sell Twitter off, and go back to tweeting constantly without having to actually be responsible for the site’s fate.
given that twitter was already unprofitable before musk saddled the firm with another $13 billion in debt, I’m guessing that he’s gonna be stuck as the owner for the foreseeable future
It’s hard to sell something you took on debt to buy at three times its value.
I don’t know if the world is that good.
Plenty of shitty people own neat things, but most of them have the sense to shut the fuck up and not play with their company like a cat with a toy mouse. Musk can own the damn thing, just get someone else to run it so Twitter’s stupidity can go back to being provided by the users rather than the platform itself.
“I will abide by the results of this poll.”
No, he won’t.
Yes he will. This is his way to seem “cool” while doing what Tesla shareholders are demanding.
Yes he will.
If there’s anything we know 100% about Musk, it’s that you can trust anything he says.
I wonder how many of those votes for him to step down were cast by Elon’s bots. This seems exactly as on the level as his poll to reinstate Trump.
He’s going to say ‘okay here you go’ and post a video of himself literally stepping down off of a box.
Let that sink out
My guess is that he only made the poll in the first place because he’d gotten tired of the hassle of dealing with Twitter (following a deal he first tried to back out of).
He’s being talked into making it so only $8 checkmarks can vote in polls like this.
Kinda looks like the entire process of “talked into” was one dude mentioning it and Elon saying: Yeah, that’s a good idea. Implementing that now.
I think he might. The longer he’s in control, and the worse the company gets, he may want to jump ship in an effort to save face. Then if the company tanks after, he can blame it on the new CEO and say it wouldn’t have happened if he remained, but the users wanted him gone and dagnammit, he was too busy running all these other successful companies. It’s a paltry excuse, but one I can easily believe his fan boys will eat up.
The Twit does not abide
Are these pictures meant to make me think he dresses like this all the time?
If you mean “like a twerp,” yes.
That picture is clearly taken at a Halloween party, but more to the point, who dresses up as Dracula Untold for Halloween?
I never even noticed the background. What was Heidi Klum screaming about?
Probably with laughter at Elon’s dumb outfit.
“Although Musk claimed he would abide by whatever the poll revealed, no official moves have been made yet.”
Jesus fucking Christ, it’s less than a day since the poll, stupid. Give him at least 24 hours to try to wriggle out of “abiding”.
Ah yes, a real business genius decides the fate of a corporation’s leadership via public informal poll. What a twat.
I guess the strategy was really “take your money and run” for Twitter’s shareholders, because I can’t imagine any of the people in charge actually thinking that Musk’s buyout and takeover would go well for the company.
That’s the ultimate end game in Silicon Valley, anyway. The number of people I heard casually mentioning their “golden parachute” while walking around SF pre-pandemic was alarming. It’s all a bit of a grift. In that sense, Musk is getting *precisely* what he deserves, and I hope the people he laid off who did the real work at the company at least got good severance packages.
Unfortunately there are reports of unpaid severance.
Wait, are you saying Elon Musk might completely lack any sense of business ethics? No wonder his fans love him so much, he’s a Gilded Age 2.0 robber baron.
That’s unfair to actual Gilded Age robber barons. Andrew Carnegie gave us the Carnegie libraries, often the first public libraries to exist in many US communities (and along with fellow robber baron Andrew Mellon, gave us Carnegie-Mellon University when their two educational institutions later merged). John D. Rockefeller gave us Rockefeller University and a big chunk of the early start of the University of Chicago. Leland Stanford, Stanford University. Musk has talked about giving back to society, but he hasn’t done much on that account.
I think he was in Iron Man 2.
You mean like offering to solve world hunger (for a year) and then when being presented with the way to do it going “nah, I’d still rather not”?
https://truthout.org/articles/musk-pledged-6b-to-solve-world-hunger-but-gave-it-to-his-own-foundation-instead/
Yes, he’s trying to get out of paying the severance he promised.
And he’s the one who’s going to pick his successor! So his “wait and see how much the next guy I hire sucks!” is really one last self-own on the way out the door.
Mike Lindell waits patiently by the (landline) phone.
After all, we can all see how well it worked for Brexit.
But the channers love him so!
Honestly he could have bought 4Chan for a fraction of the cost. 8kun even cheaper
I would like to see him stay until Twitter is finally nothing more than a smoldering crater. A new CEO might actually pull Twitter out of its nosedive.
Or best case scenario: mutual destruction.
All it means is a figurehead CEO who will still answer to him anyway.
I can’t believe how “politicized” every action of his has become in the last two years. Musk derangement syndrome in full force.
I prefer this one
I can’t believe how “politicized” every action of his has become in the last two years.
Wait…what’s “political” about this? We’re laughing at a self-own of ridiculous proportions.
…For like the 46th time this year.I guess we’re all “politics” junkies around here!
Most of his actions since he announced the offer for Twitter have been pretty explicitly political. He never thought he’d have to actually buy the thing. His terror at discovery was palpable, and following The Chancery Daily’s twitter account during the hearings was a hoot.
It’s funny that whenever a right-leaning celebrity behaves badly and people call them on it, it’s called a “derangement syndrome.” No, we just don’t like your moronic hero of the moment. It’s not a mental illness on our part.
Remember how these CHUDs forced gamergate slang into everyday discourse? They’re trying to do the same thing again, but fortunately it’s not the 2010s anymore.
“Clinton Derangement Syndrome” was the first time the phrase was used, and it accurately described an almost crazed determination to “bring the Clintons down”. Of course the right has coopted the phrase and made it self-serving and meaningless. It’s what they do.
You’re *THIS CLOSE* to getting it.
It’s funny to think that anything the worlds richest man does is not political in nature. He’s is the king capitalist. Everything he says and does causes tremors through the economy. This is, obviously, a terrible thing. We have always had insanely rich people that basically control the world and some even tried to go into political or bought news papers to manipulate the world easier but at lest they didn’t have a global instant soap box to say every stupid thing that comes across their mind. Maybe I’m just not built like someone like Musk, thankfully, but if I was a fraction of as rich as he was I’d not have three jobs. I’d have none. I’d enjoy my damn life. Enjoy my family. Travel and see the world. I’d want to be the anonymous millionaire who goes and does the expensive shit but can also order a Big Mac without anyone noticing. I think the problem is these ultra rich people now want to be famous too and the media is all too willing to help. It honestly speaks to just how fragile their egos are. Living your whole life rich from generational wealth just isn’t fulfilling to them. They need to be loved(because Daddy didn’t)
No matter how hard you defend ‘Ol Musty, he will never notice you, give you a job or send you money. Your life will always be shit and as long as you defend him, you will be a shitty person. Hope this helps.
“Shitty billionaire does dumb thing”
Fan of that dumb billionaire: Well don’t you all look stupid?
Musk fans are like the kid at the end of an opposite version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
The only person bringing politics into is Musk himself when he says he’s now a Republican because, despite their extremism, he doesn’t like the Democrat’s penchant for unions and class actions suits (as this affects him personally). Everyone else is just pointing and laughing, fairly apolitically in this case.
You look at what’s going on with Elon Musk and see derangement in the general public, not the billionaire melting down in front of them?
But the 24/7 news will be so empty without broadcasting his posts on the worst forum on the internet!
He’s in the A.V. Club comments!?
Yes, he’s E.Buzz Miller.
And here I thought he was Irwin Mainway.
I’ve seen Something Awful’s curated selection of posts from a bugchaser forum, so as bad as Twitter may be, it can’t actually claim the title of worst.
Seems apparent that Musk has already decided to step down as head honcho of Twitter. He’s not stupid enough to ask the question without having a reasonable idea of what the answer would be, and in all likelihood it’s the one he wanted. He didn’t even really want the damn thing in the first place.
Given the impact his actions there have had on the share prices of both Tesla and Space-X, not to mention the future share price of Twitter, it’s pretty clear that him taking a back seat would be in the long term best interests of everything.
He’s not stupid enough Haha, sweet summer child
The thing is, based on his past behaviour, he might actually be that stupid.
No. I know it’s the done thing these days to automatically assume that people you disagree with are stupid, but you don’t get to be in the position he is if you are an idiot. An asshole for sure. A Troll? It’s likely. An idiot? On the balance of probabilities alone it’s unlikely.
I don’t know that he’s stupid as such, like the adult male Trump spawn clearly are (and are exemplars of the fact that you can be stupid and in a position of power and influence because of inherited/family wealth), but the gulf between how smart he thinks he is and how smart he actually is seems absolutely vast.
An idiot? On the balance of probabilities alone it’s unlikely.
If Musk’s actions since taking over Twitter haven’t convinced you that Musk is an idiot who has no idea what he’s doing, then you’re just ignoring the blatantly obvious. Didn’t you read anything from the SpaceX guy who said that there’s an entire team whose only job it is to ‘handle’ Musk when he’s around, so he doesn’t fuck up any of the actual work that’s getting done. He’s a loser loner rich kid troll who thinks he’s the greatest gift mankind’s ever received. Musk truly doesn’t understand how incompetent he actually is. Musk thought he could talk shit about buying Twitter, sign the deal, and then back out of it without consequence. He’s failed upwards his entire life because of his money, and now it’s finally coming back to bite him in the ass.
you don’t get to be in the position he is if you are an idiot.Really
getting tired of hearing that. People said the same thing about Trump,
who is stupid beyond stupid by any objective measure. The only reason
he’s got to where he is is because he has money and the people around
him think they can get some of that money if they keep Trump happy. Musk
is no different.
you don’t get to be in the position he is if you are an idiotlol
Yeah, I dunno. Having just seen Glass Onion, I’m with Benoit Blanc on this one.Also, I didn’t say he was an idiot, just that he’s capable of being that stupid.
I want him to stay so that it keeps burning down.
puts on a fake mustache and goatee“Hello babes n’ dudes! I’m your new CEO, Nole Musk. I guess you’ve met my twin brother, Elon Musk. He’s such a dweeb and the people have spoken.”
Who wants to bet the next step is a poll for who should be the CEO? With a list of absolutely the worst people named.
A Hitler-shark hybrid?
You jest, but the shark half has some ideas with potential . . .
“KILL KILL KILL…”
1. Eat
2. Swim
3. Make little sharks
Nah, Hitler-shark took his name off the ballot after some anti-semitic Tweets against Stephen Spielberg resurfaced earlier this week.Oddly enough, Kanye West is still in the running.
Who do I vote for? Kanye, Jared Kushner, or Stephen Miller? This certainly looks like the free and independent Will of the People…
It’s a dead heat between Andy Ngo, Ian Miles Cheong, and Catturd2.
Those people who actually believe this poll will change anything in their favor are 100% wrong. He is the owner after all.
“I will abide by the results of this poll.”Ron Howard: “He didn’t.”
Jokes that he’ll buy Twitter: “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
Elon Musk: The Rik of Twitter.
Can I be the Neal!?
Please…Musk clearly had either decided to leave or was told to leave. Him putting the choice in the hands of the people after he spent months alienating anyone who wasn’t a rabid fanboy is just another cheap trick to keep / gain his fans.
He is so full of shite….
He was voted Worst Boss of the Year over at AskAManager.com