Elon Musk, Who Lies Regularly, Promises to Step Down as Twitter CEO

By Dustin Rowles | Social Media | December 19, 2022 |

By Dustin Rowles | Social Media | December 19, 2022 |

On Sunday, embattled Twitter owner Elon Musk posted a poll to Twitter asking users to vote on whether he should step down as CEO, assuring users that he would abide by the results. After 17.5 million votes, 57.5 percent of Twitter voters said that he should step down.

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

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

It is unlikely that Elon Musk will abide by the results of the poll. It would be difficult to find a competent and experienced CEO to take control of a sinking company, and if he were to name a new CEO, Musk would retain all the decision-making power. Any new CEO would be a puppet. “Despite his claim that he will abide by his poll and step down as CEO, given how he has clearly demonstrated he is someone who does not know how to run a social media platform, there is a good chance he may just put in a puppet yes-man who aligns with Musk’s philosophy and thus will still make incredibly poor decisions when it comes to running Twitter,” Steven Buckley, a lecturer in media and communications specializing in US politics and social media at City University, London, told Chris Stokel-Walker at Inews.

Musk has already conceded the former point …

No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2022

… while his supporters on Twitter are already suggesting “woke” bots — like the ones that Elon has promised to rid the platform of — have rigged the vote in Elon’s favor, and that the poll itself was a form of four-dimensional chess whereby Musk was really only trying to lure the bots out so that he could zap them.

Some real cope going on right now pic.twitter.com/NBP6MPpas3

— Wild Geerters (@steinkobbe) December 19, 2022

A billionaire losing a “do you like me” poll on a service he paid $44 billion for is just an objectively funny way for this whole thing to end

— Matt Novak (@paleofuture) December 19, 2022

Elon Musk’s credibility is already in question. Last week, Musk blamed a Twitter user — originally a fan of Musk — for an account tracking his jet, which Musk blamed for a stalking incident, which Musk eventually used to rationalize suspending a number of journalists critical of Musk. From The Washington Post:

A confrontation between a member of Elon Musk’s security team and an alleged stalker that Musk blamed on a Twitter account that tracked his jet took place at a gas station 26 miles from Los Angeles International Airport and 23 hours after the @ElonJet account had last located the jet’s whereabouts.

The timing and location of the confrontation cast doubt on Musk’s assertion that the account had posted real-time “assassination coordinates” that threatened his family and led to the confrontation. Police have said little about the incident but say they’ve yet to find a link between the confrontation and the jet-tracking account.

Before Musk offered the Twitter poll, a number of users hit another breaking point with the streaming platform after Musk announced a new policy prohibiting the promotion of other social media networks, including not just direct competitors like Mastodon and Post.News, but Facebook and Instagram, as well. The backlash was so swift and vocal that Elon Musk’s mother felt compelled to defend her son.

This makes absolute sense. When I give a talk for a corporation, I don’t promote other corporations. If I did, I would be fired on the spot and never booked again. Is that hard to understand? https://t.co/DPDP0sFRH9

— Maye Musk (@mayemusk) December 18, 2022

By late Sunday, the new policy was removed, although it is unclear if it was a response to the backlash or to the fact that the policy is prohibited under European Union rules.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk continues to suspend the accounts of journalists. The account of Susan Li at Fox Business News has been suspended (and not yet reinstated), as was Elon Musk critic Taylor Lorenz — who wrote the above Washington Post piece — for promoting her other social media profiles.

Finally, Elon Musk also announced a new change on Saturday night that would give more algorithm power to Twitter Blue users, who are predominantly conservative fans of Elon Musk.

Twitter will start incorporating mute & block signals from Blue Verified (not Legacy Blue) as downvotes

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2022

The effect of this change will be to favor the accounts most liked and followed by Elon Musk followers, turning Twitter into a right-wing echo chamber no different than Parler or Truth Social.

For aesthetic reasons, Pajiba’s official policy is to replace photos of Elon Musk with that of Lee Pace, with apologies to Lee Pace.