If Musk heeds the results, it would mark the end of 53 chaotic days at the helm, which has involved dismissing top executives, eliminating roughly half of its employees and spooking advertisers.

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

His silence was finally broken late 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”, Musk said: “Good point. Twitter will make that change.”

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

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, including Donald Trump, to return, but also banning and then reinstating some journalists reporting on Musk. He introduced and then appeared 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.

A growing number of Twitter users have left the platform under Musk, or created alternative accounts on Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr or Post, and included those addresses in their Twitter profiles.

During his tenure, Musk, who is also chief executive officer of Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies, has also laid off more than half of Twitter’s global workforce.

While it remains unclear who could replace 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.

The threat that Twitter might veer into financial difficulties has also been constant during Musk’s tenure, who in his first address to employees in November said bankruptcy was a possibility if it does not start generating more cash.

The company has almost US$13 billion of debt that is now in the hands of seven Wall Street banks that have been unable to offload it to investors.

Musk was in Qatar to watch the World Cup final match between Argentina and France and tweeted out his poll after the game’s conclusion.

Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud is the second largest investor in Twitter behind Musk, while the Qatar Investment Authority has invested US$375 million in the social media platform.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg