Elon Musk recently conducted a Twitter poll asking if he should resign as Twitter’s CEO, a role he has held since acquiring the social media behemoth in October. As the most recent of Musk’s high-profile activities, the publication of the “Twitter files”—internal conversations between Twitter executives and the FBI during the Biden administration—surprised many, as did the poll’s question.

The files pertaining to censorship and data suppression, some of which are tied to the Biden family via Hunter Biden’s laptop and the 2020 presidential election. Michael Shellenberger, one of the journalists publishing the information with Elon Musk, said to Tucker Carlson on Monday night that he and others spent weeks scrutinizing internal emails and Slack direct-messaging communication between Twitter workers. According to him, the documents created a picture of a complex interaction between the FBI and a private corporation.

Over the weekend, many journalists were outraged by Musk’s decision to ban a number of reporters for their involvement in disclosing information that led to the doxxing of his private location and some of his family members. Musk ultimately restored the reporters, but the Twitter usage policy expressly mentions “doxxing” and the sanctions for “stalking” individuals on the network.

Musk asking for advice on the administration of any of his businesses at this time, when he appears to have earned formidable adversaries, seems implausible. However, the poll emerged, and everyone who viewed it excitedly anticipated its findings.

The vote was only available for around 12 hours, not even a full day and night, therefore it is possible that many users never ever saw it. Musk has previously conducted surveys and has often left them up for a longer amount of time. When it was taken down, the results revealed that around 57.5% of voters supported Musk’s resignation, while 42.5% opposed it. Others who dislike Musk have been fleeing the network in droves, while those who were suppressed by the prior Dorsey Twitter have been returning to the platform in large numbers.

As soon as the survey findings were revealed, social media lit up with claims that the results may have been tainted and that Musk’s recent activities have made him unpopular with liberals, particularly Democrats. Musk’s response indicated why he would have first issued such a poll.

Summit News reported on the aftermath of the poll:

As we highlighted yesterday, the expectation was that Musk would relinquish the position after he ran a poll asking “Should I step down as head of Twitter?” After asserting he would “abide by the results of this poll,” the outcome was that 57.5% to 42.5% wanted to see him vacate the position.

Musk seems to concur with claims that the vote he held to determine if he should resign as Twitter CEO was rigged by bots and that the poll should be done again.

“Very interesting when you compared the number of votes versus the number of likes on the tweets. Did bots brigade the Elon poll yesterday?” asked the Wall Street Silver account.

“Interesting,” responded Musk.

Very interesting when you compared the number of votes versus the number of likes on the tweets.

Did bots brigade the Elon poll yesterday? @elonmusk https://t.co/kLnm540itw

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) December 19, 2022

Kimdotcom also asserted that the poll results had been manipulated by bots, telling Musk,  “It’s unwise to run a poll like this when you are now deep state enemy #1. They have the biggest bot army on Twitter. They have 100k ‘analysts’ with 30-40 accounts all voting against you. Let’s clean up and then run this poll again. The majority has faith in you.”

Hey @elonmusk, it’s unwise to run a poll like this when you are now deep state enemy #1. They have the biggest bot army on Twitter. They have 100k ‘analysts’ with 30-40 accounts all voting against you. Let’s clean up and then run this poll again. The majority has faith in you. 😘 https://t.co/y2piyeE84a

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) December 19, 2022

Another person suggested that the poll should be restricted to Twitter Blue members so that only actual people could vote.

“Blue subscribers should be the only ones that can vote in policy related polls. We actually have skin in the game,” tweeted a user called Unfiltered Boss.

“Good point. Twitter will make that change,” responded Musk.

Blue subscribers should be the only ones that can vote in policy related polls. We actually have skin in the game

— Unfiltered☢Boss (@Unfilteredboss1) December 19, 2022

This strongly implies, according to Summit News, that Musk has abandoned his prior pledge to “abide by the results of this poll” and will conduct another poll. This would enrage famous leftists who believed they had won a significant triumph by winning the poll.

Some found the entire scenario peculiar, given the timing of Musk’s self-referential comment raises suspicions. It is evident that the self-made millionaire would need to make a statement that people utilizing bots could not refuse in order to attract them. It will be intriguing to observe if Musk reinstates the poll after taking the necessary steps to ensure that the findings are more trustworthy.

Thousands of internal correspondences are already available on Twitter, and it is unknown whether more will be made public.