Musk: Future policy-related polls only open for Twitter Blue subscribers

Elon Musk has said only Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to vote in future policy-related polls on the platform in his first comments since millions of users voted for him to step down as chief executive of the site.

On Sunday, the Tesla boss said he would “abide by” the result of a poll, which he created, asking Twitter users whether he should step down.

The result was confirmed on Monday morning, with 57.5% of the more than 17.5 million accounts that voted saying he should withdraw from his role.

Normally a prolific user of the platform, Mr Musk did not tweet in the immediate hours following the poll.

His silence was finally broken just before 11.30pm on Monday, when he responded “Interesting” to a suggestion from Kim Dotcom, founder of the once wildly popular file-sharing website Megaupload, that the results of the poll were skewed by fake accounts.

Replying to another user’s suggestion that “Blue subscribers should be the only ones that can vote in policy related polls”, Mr Musk said: “Good point. Twitter will make that change.”

His Twitter stream continued into the early hours of Tuesday morning, linking to the site’s World Cup statistics and laughing at a satirical take on Bruce Wayne running a poll about stepping down as Batman.

Twitter Blue is a paid-for subscription which allows anyone to buy a blue tick verified badge for their account.

Mr Musk’s poll on Sunday night came after weeks of controversial decisions.

These have included loosening Twitter’s content moderation approach and allowing previously banned users to return, but also banning and then reinstating some journalists reporting on Mr Musk and introducing and then appearing to remove a policy which banned users from tweeting links to certain other social media platforms.

Some online safety groups have accused the billionaire of allowing hate, abuse and misinformation to more easily circulate on the platform because of his free speech principles.

During his tenure, Mr Musk has also laid off more than half of the company’s global workforce.

While it remains unclear who could replace Mr Musk if he does step down, several commentators have noted that the billionaire would still have the final say on major decisions as Twitter’s owner.