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This photo illustration taken on December 18, 2022 in Los Angeles shows a phone displaying Elon Musk's Twitter page where he is conducting a survey about his future as the head of the company. Chris Delmas | AFP | Getty Images

Twitter polls are straw polls, meaning they are informal and not comparable to professional public opinion research. Malicious bots or inauthentic accounts may also be able to register a response to a Twitter poll. Musk's Sunday poll followed online backlash after the "Chief Twit" (as he has called himself) made sudden changes to policies impacting users of Twitter in the last week. For example, the company introduced a new social media platform promotion policy on Sunday, which prohibited users from sharing links to some of their other social media accounts. Longtime Musk friends and proponents, including Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, expressed their dismay at the policy causing Musk to later apologize and roll it back.

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Days earlier, Twitter made changes to its policy on "doxxing," which the company now defines as "sharing someone's private information online without their permission." The new policy prohibits users from sharing other people's live location information, home addresses, contact information or physical location information but has left many confused over what information crosses Twitter's line. Musk's policy changes were used as a justification to suspend the Twitter accounts of a number of U.S.-based journalists, commentators and others who were critical of the CEO or his companies in the past. Some of the accounts were fully or partially restored a few days later, but not all. The suspensions marked the latest chapter of Musk's rocky takeover of Twitter. He led the acquisition of the company for around $44 billion in October, and his leadership has resulted in massive staff cuts, a spike in racist hate speech, advertisers fleeing or slashing their spending on the platform, as well as the reinstatement of previously banned accounts. Musk claims that Twitter usage has reached an all-time high since he took over, and that hate speech impressions have fallen. The billionaire's management of Twitter is bleeding into, and raising concerns about, his other ventures. For example, Musk has sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares this year to finance the Twitter takeover. He has also pulled in talent from both Tesla and SpaceX, including executives, engineers and attorneys, to assist him at Twitter. A CEO spending time and money on Twitter isn't Tesla's only challenge — the company is currently offering discounts on vehicles in China, an indication of weaker demand for its cars there, according to Tesla bear Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" last week. Earlier this month, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson asked SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell whether Musk's "distraction" at Twitter might affect SpaceX's work with the space agency, NBC News reported. Nelson said she reassured him it would not.

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