Musk limits vote on Twitter policy to paid members

NEW YORK: Twitter Inc will restrict voting on major policy decisions to paying Twitter Blue subscribers, company owner Elon Musk said in one of his first tweets following a poll calling for him to step down.

Responding to a Blue member going by the name Unfiltered Boss, Mr Musk agreed with the suggestion that only subscribers should have a voice in future policy and said, “Twitter will make that change.” A day earlier, the billionaire chief pledged to submit all future policy decisions to a vote and offered Twitter users a choice on leadership, asking them if he should step down.

More than 10 million, or 57.5% of the vote, were in favour of Mr Musk relinquishing his role as head of Twitter. He committed to abide by the result when asking for the vote, but nearly a day later, he had tweeted more than 10 times without directly addressing the outcome. Mr Musk responded to a tweet suggesting the poll may have been manipulated by bots with a single word: “interesting”.

Mr Musk’s dramatic offer to step down came shortly after he attended the World Cup final match in Qatar, triggering a wave of trending topics such as “VOTE YES” and “CEO of Twitter”. He didn’t identify an alternative leader and went so far as to say anyone capable of doing the job wouldn’t want it.

Mr Musk has warned that Twitter is at risk of bankruptcy and instituted a “hardcore” work environment for the remaining workers after a drastic cutback in staff. In his less than two months at the helm, he has spooked advertisers, alienated Twitter’s most ardent creators and turned the service from a reflection of the news of the day into the main topic.

After losing the initial poll, Mr Musk, who’s also chief executive officer of Tesla Inc, retweeted promotional material for the car company and for Twitter’s Blue for Business service. He also responded to an article about rival Toyota Motor Corp’s criticism of electric vehicles with a simple “Wow”.