Elon Musk has promised he will “abide by the results of the poll” after asking if he should step down as the head of Twitter. The vote comes at a time the billionaire has faced criticism for suspending journalists from the social media platform.
The poll ends around 11am GMT on December 19, and those wishing for the billionaire to step down are currently winning by 57.6 percent, while those voting for Elon Musk to stay on is at 42.4 percent.
One million people voted in the poll within minutes of it being published, and more than six million people have voted with nine hours still left until the vote ends.
This latest Twitter vote comes exactly one month after Elon Musk made a poll asking users to vote if he should reinstate former president Donald Trump’s account on November 19.
The former US president, who had more than 80 million followers, was permanently suspended from Twitter following the Capitol riots in January 2021.
The social media platform said the decision to ban the former president was made “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”.
Before he bought Twitter, Elon Musk said he would reserve Twitter’s “foolish” ban on Donald Trump if he took charge.
Earlier this year in May, Elon Musk said: “Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam, scam accounts. I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump.
“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
Donald Trump has not returned to Twitter one month after being unbanned from the platform and instead continues to post on Truth Social, the social media site he founded himself.
READ MORE: Twitter suspends journalist accounts with ‘no warning’
On Saturday, Elon Musk reinstated the journalists’ accounts after asking Twitter users when their suspension should be lifted.
Around 59 percent of 3.6 million Twitter users voted for the ban to be lifted immediately.
Elon Musk tweeted: “The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now.”
However, the ElonJet account continues to be suspended.
The suspension of journalist accounts was condemned by the United Nations as an attack on the freedom of the press.
Melissa Fleming, the UN’s Under Secretary General, said: “Media freedom is not a toy, a free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful disinformation.”
