On Sunday, Twitter’s new proprietor and CEO Elon Musk posted a casual ballot of customers of the social media platform asking if he ought to step down as head of the corporate. By 4:50 a.m. ET 16.3 million votes had been forged, with the vast majority of respondents (57.5%) calling for the billionaire to go away his put up.

Musk claimed he’ll abide by the outcomes of the ballot, which is because of shut early Monday morning, however it’s unclear whether or not or not he’ll really accomplish that. Shares of Tesla rose 4.5% in U.S. premarket buying and selling Monday.

In courtroom in November, Musk mentioned, “I count on to scale back my time at Twitter and discover anyone else to run Twitter over time.” Nonetheless, on Sunday, he wrote in a tweet that there is no such thing as a potential successor for him on the social media firm.

“The query isn’t discovering a CEO, the query is discovering a CEO who can hold Twitter alive,” he wrote.

Twitter polls are straw polls, that means they’re casual and never similar to skilled public opinion analysis. Malicious bots or inauthentic accounts might also be capable of register a response to a Twitter ballot.

Musk’s Sunday ballot adopted on-line backlash after the “Chief Twit” (as he has known as himself) made sudden modifications to insurance policies impacting customers of Twitter within the final week.

For instance, the corporate launched a brand new social media platform promotion coverage on Sunday, which prohibited customers from sharing hyperlinks to a few of their different social media accounts. Longtime Musk associates and proponents, together with Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, expressed their dismay on the coverage inflicting Musk to later apologize and roll it again.

Days earlier, Twitter made modifications to its coverage on “doxxing,” which the corporate now defines as “sharing somebody’s non-public data on-line with out their permission.” The brand new coverage prohibits customers from sharing different individuals’s stay location data, residence addresses, contact data or bodily location data however has left many confused over what data crosses Twitter’s line. 

Musk’s coverage modifications have been used as a justification to droop the Twitter accounts of a variety of U.S.-based journalists, commentators and others who have been vital of the CEO or his corporations prior to now. A few of the accounts have been absolutely or partially restored a couple of days later, however not all.

The suspensions marked the most recent chapter of Musk’s rocky takeover at Twitter. He led the acquisition of the corporate for round $44 billion in October, and his management has resulted in huge workers cuts, a spike in racist hate speech, advertisers fleeing or slashing their spending on the platform, in addition to the reinstatement of beforehand banned accounts.

Musk claims that Twitter utilization has reached an all-time excessive since he took over, and hate speech impressions have fallen.

The billionaire’s administration at Twitter is bleeding into, and elevating issues about, his different ventures.

For instance, Musk has bought billions of {dollars} value of Tesla shares this 12 months to finance the Twitter takeover. He has additionally pulled in expertise from each Tesla and SpaceX, together with executives, engineers and attorneys, to help him at Twitter.

Earlier this month, NASA administrator Invoice Nelson requested SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell whether or not Musk’s “distraction” at Twitter would possibly have an effect on SpaceX’s work with the house company, NBC Information reported. Nelson mentioned she reassured him it might not.

However Musk’s conduct at Twitter is having a unfavorable influence on his automobile firm’s public picture and inventory worth. Shares in Tesla had dropped about 60% year-to-date as of Sunday night time. It comes amid a broad decline in development shares which has seen the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fall over 30% year-to-date.

In a observe late Sunday, Dan Ives, managing director of equities at Wedbush Securities, wrote that the second-biggest request on his Christmas “want checklist” was for Musk to discover a successor to run the social media firm.

“With the Twitter chaos entrance and middle and leading to a significant headache and overhang for the Tesla story, we imagine Musk wants to call a everlasting CEO of Twitter (and never Musk himself) to finish the ache,” Ives mentioned.

Tesla’s largest retail shareholder, Leo Koguan, wrote in a tweet on Dec. 14, that “Elon deserted Tesla and Tesla has no working CEO.” He known as on the corporate’s board of administrators to take motion. “Tesla wants and deserves to have [a] working full time CEO,” he wrote, criticizing the corporate’s board of administrators for obvious inaction.

Musk tweeted final week that he’ll “be certain that” Tesla shareholders profit from Twitter in the long run.

A survey in Germany’s Der Spiegel final week discovered that 63% of respondents really feel that Elon Musk’s public efficiency because the CEO of Twitter has had a principally unfavorable or clearly unfavorable influence on their view of Tesla.

And solely 9% of respondents to that survey mentioned they discover Tesla very or principally likable as a model — the corporate ranked far behind VW, BMW, Opel and others in Germany. That is even though Tesla is investing closely within the German market. It opened a significant automobile meeting plant in Grünheide, outdoors of Berlin, in March this 12 months.

Correction: This text has been up to date to mirror that at 3.30 a.m. ET the vast majority of ballot respondents had voted for Musk to go away his put up.