Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), is holding a poll on whether or not to allow former President Donald Trump back onto the platform. So far, half of participants have voted “yes.”
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
“The voice of the people is the voice of God,” Musk tweeted just minutes after posting his poll Friday evening. The Latin phrase “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” means exactly that. The poll was set to remain open for a full day before closing.
With only 2 hours left to vote on Saturday, over 14 million votes had been cast as of 2:00 p.m. PT, with a slight advantage held by Musk’s followers who favored reinstating Trump at 53% to 48%.
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz was among those in favor of Trump’s return, tweeting “Hell YES!”
Around 4 a.m, Musk took to Twitter again with the following tweet:
Trump poll getting ~1M votes/hour!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
The former president was removed from Twitter in January 2021 after his posts were seen as promoting the deadly U.S. Capitol riot earlier that month.
Musk posted the survey as the social microblogging site remains in a state of chaos. It appears that hundreds of Twitter employees have lost their jobs after the Tesla and SpaceX boss demanded they work “long hours at high intensity” — or leave.
Musk has already drastically reduced Twitter’s workforce from about 7,500 to 3,700 employees. The New York Times reports that an additional 1,200 workers left on Thursday alone, leaving the company “teetering on the edge.”
There have been reports of drastic cuts to engineering and content moderation departments.
On Friday morning, according to company messages viewed by the Times, Musk was reaching out to employees for help.
“Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 p.m. today,” Musk wrote in one message seen by the Times.
After about half an hour, Musk reportedly sent another email asking to learn about Twitter’s “tech stack.” This refers to a company’s software and related systems. In yet another email, he requested that some people fly out to Twitter headquarters in San Francisco so that they could meet face-to-face, as per the Times.
Getting back to the Trump poll, one user asked Musk if the survey could be truly representative.
“When polls are about a significant question, even those who don’t follow me tend to hear about it,” Musk replied. “That said, I agree with the idea of an all-user poll. Should also be an all-user by country poll.”
Twitter reinstated Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson & Babylon Bee on Thursday, but Elon Musk said that no decision had been made regarding Donald Trump’s reinstatement at the time.
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