Elon Musk will step down as head of Twitter if users of the social media vote for him to do so in a poll, he said on Sunday night – and voters currently want him to depart.

As of 11.45pm, 55.5 per cent of the 1.8 million voters had voted ‘yes’ with 45.5 per cent saying ‘no’ in response to the question “Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.”

Musk launched the poll at 11.20pm GMT, and around 20 minutes later, he tweeted: “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

The 51-year-old took over the running of Twitter in late October and has attracted attention for instigating an $8 monthly subscription for a blue tick and laying off a large number of staff.

He took control with stated ambitions to promote free speech and welcomed previous exiles Kanye West and Donald Trump back online – only to re-ban the former after the rapper’s continued anti-Semetic sentiment. On Saturday, he continued to ring the changes as he lifted the suspensions of the Twitter accounts of several journalists he had previously banned.

Musk has already had some responses to his walk away tweet.

Lex Fridman wrote: “Let me run Twitter for a bit. No salary. All in. Focus on great engineering and increasing the amount of love in the world. Just offering my help in the unlikely case it’s useful.”

Musk replied: “You must like pain a lot. One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Still want the job?”

To another, Musk wrote: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.”