Musk agrees to step down as Twitter boss

Elon Musk has agreed to step down as chief executive of Twitter after a user poll found in favour of him quitting.

The billionaire owner of the social media platform launched the poll on Sunday, asking users if he should step down as head of Twitter and pledging to abide by the results.

More than 17.5m people voted, with 57.5% finding in favour of him quitting, and on Wednesday Musk confirmed his departure.

He tweeted: "I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software and servers teams."

Musk, who also heads Tesla and SpaceX, acquired Twitter in October following a protracted and often bitter takeover. After surprising markets by agreeing to spend $44bn buying the business in April, within weeks Musk announced he was walking away in a dispute over the number of spam accounts on the platform.

Twitter launched legal action to force him to close the deal, which Musk initially fought. The deal eventually completed just days before the two sides were due to meet in court.

Musk immediately took over as chief executive, but his short tenure has been fraught with controversary and upheaval, including the sacking or resignation of more than half the company’s staff and the loss of advertisers.

He also temporarily locked employees out of offices, demanded an end to remote working, introduced a paid-for verification system and has suspended some journalists while allowing back banned accounts, including Donald Trump.

Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said: "Since taking to the helm, [Musk] has brought about some drastic and divisive changes.

"It is likely that the new boss will be largely aligned to Musk in terms of his vision for the business and most importantly his controversial focus as a free-speech absolutist, making this a priority over content moderation and the removal of fake news."

Tesla has also been caught up in the fallout, with the shares now down 66% in the year to date, including an 8% slump on Tuesday. But they strengthened in pre-market trading on Wednesday, up 2% by 0930 GMT.

Scholar noted: "Tesla is on track for its worst month and quarter in its history, as the Twitter takeover raises concerns about how dedicated Musk is to the electric vehicle giant. Tesla has also been hit by the rising rate environment this year, and pressures from inflation as well as global chip shortages.

"Perhaps a new CEO at Twitter will give Musk more time to refocus on the electric vehicle opportunity."