SAN FRANCISCO – Twitter Inc users have voted for Mr Elon Musk to step down from his role as head of the social platform in a poll the billionaire entrepreneur said he would respect, a sharp rebuke of his chaotic tenure less than two months since he took over.

About 58 per cent of the 17.5 million votes cast were in favour of Mr Musk stepping back from the leadership role.

If Mr Musk heeds the results, it would mark the end of 53 chaotic days at the helm, which has involved dismissing top executives, eliminating roughly half of its employees and spooking advertisers.

Mr Musk, whos also chief executive officer of Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp, has dedicated much of his time since acquiring Twitter on Oct 27 to the social media service, drawing criticism for his abrupt policy changes and neglect of his other businesses.

The stock of Tesla, his most valuable holding, has sunk by about a third since the acquisition.

It is not the first time Mr Musk has put major corporate decisions to Twitter users.

He conducted a poll of his followers on whether to reinstate former US president Donald Trumps Twitter account, and allowed him back the following day.

There is no clear replacement at Twitter, with almost all of its top rank executives having been fired or resigning over the past few months.

Mr Musk said in later tweets that No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor, and and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May.

The threat that Twitter might veer into financial difficulties has been constant during Mr Musks tenure, who in his first address to Twitter employees in November said bankruptcy was a possibility if it doesnt start generating more cash.

The company has almost US$13 billion (S$17.63 billion) of debt thats now in the hands of seven Wall Street banks that have been unable to offload it to investors.

Mr Musk had previously indicated that hed only be in charge of Twitter for a limited time to complete the organisational overhaul he thought it needed to prosper, and has complained of having too much work and sleeping at Twitters San Francisco office while enforcing his radical changes. Embed Twitter Tweet URL Tesla shares gained 4.8 per cent in US premarket trading on Monday.

Shares in the carmaker have slumped 57 per cent this year amid concerns the chaotic takeover of Twitter has distracted Mr Musk from the firm that propelled him to the richest person in the world – a title he lost last week to luxury titan Bernard Arnault.

Mr Musk was in Qatar on Sunday to watch the World Cup final match between Argentina and France. Mr Elon Musk was in Qatar on Sunday to watch the World Cup final match between Argentina and France. PHOTO: REUTERS With the Twitter chaos front and centre and resulting in a major headache and overhang for the Tesla story, we believe Musk needs to name a permanent CEO of Twitter (and not Musk himself) to end the pain, said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

The poll comes after Twitters Sunday policy update, which prohibited accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social media firms and content that contains links or usernames for rival platforms.

Minutes before that poll, Mr Musk apologised and tweeted Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes.

A few hours later, an official Twitter account started a separate poll asking users if the platform should have a policy preventing accounts that advertise other social media platforms on Twitter. More On This Topic Elon Musk says he will find a new leader for Twitter Tesla investors have a message for Elon Musk: Stop wasting time on Twitter The policy update would impact content from social media platforms like Meta Platforms Facebook and Instagram, along with Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post while allowing cross-content posting, Twitter support said in a tweet.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who recently invested in social media platform Nostr, replied to the Twitter support post with one word: Why? In a reply to another user posting about the Nostr promotion ban, Mr Dorsey said, doesnt make sense.

Short video-platform TikTok, owned by Chinas ByteDance, was not included in the list.

Last week, Twitter disbanded its Trust and Safety Council, a volunteer group formed in 2016 to advise the social media platform on site decisions. BLOOMBERG, REUTERS More On This Topic Elon Musk briefly loses top spot on Forbes billionaire list Tired of the Twitter turmoil? Here are 4 social media alternatives