Trump calls Musk a ‘hero’ and says he held poll on quitting as Twitter CEO because he wants out

Former president claimed billionaire deliberately lost new Twitter poll on his future

Graeme Massie

Los Angeles

Wednesday 21 December 2022 05:51 GMT

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Trump says Musk held poll as he wants to quit as Twitter CEO

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Donald Trump has called Elon Musk a “hero” for promoting allegations against Hunter Biden and claims the Twitter CEO wants to quit the social media platform.

The former president said in a new interview that he believes the billionaire deliberately lost a poll on his Twitter future as he no longer wants the job of running his $44bn purchase.

“I think he wants to step down, I think that’s a good way of stepping down, you know just lose in a poll and say ‘I’m out of here’,” Mr Trump told Chanel Rion of far-right cable network One America News.

And on Tuesday night Mr Musk said that he would quit the role – eventually.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” he tweeted.

Rion also asked Mr Trump if he viewed Mr Musk as a hero for the Twitter Files series, in which he allows journalists to dig into past decisions made on the platform, including banning Mr Trump.

The latest Twitter Files thread alleges FBI involvement in Twitter’s decision to block a New York Post story alleging wrongdoing by Hunter Biden and his father, then-candidate Joe Biden, from being shared in the weeks before the 2020 election. It is yet to be established whether either man has committed any crime in connection with allegations about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China.

The author of the latest thread, writer Michael Shellenberger, claims of the 14 October 2020 Post article that “every single fact in it was accurate”. However, others have disputed elements of the story, including a claim in its opening sentence that Joe Biden was responsible for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, an energy company that Hunter Biden had served on the board of. The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was apparently not investigating Burisma and was actually fired for faiing to investigate corruption.

Mr Trump said of Mr Musk: “Yeah, I’d say he is a hero, it’s a big part of his legacy. I think it is more important than other things he has done and it is very important.”

Mr Musk lost a Twitter poll that he posted asking his followers if he should stand down as CEO of the company that he took over in October. After losing the poll Mr Musk announced that he would change how it works on Twitter so that only said subscribers can vote.

CNBC reported on Tuesday that Mr Musk was “actively searching” for a new CEO, citing anonymous sources.

Mr Musk responded to the story on Twitter by posting two crying laughing emojis.

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