Elon Musk poll may prompt a Twitter edit button, CEO hints

Twitter chief executive officer Parag Agrawal has responded to a poll posted by Tesla chief Elon Musk, his company’s biggest shareholder, by calling it important and urging users to “vote carefully.”

Musk revealed this week that he’s acquired a 9.2 per cent passive stake in Twitter, however his recent postings on the service – where he has more than 80 million followers and has filled the void left by Donald Trump as one of the most influential accounts – have actively discussed perceived shortcomings. On Monday, Musk queried if his followers wanted an edit button, offering misspelled “yes” and “no” options in his usual humorously casual style.

Agrawal, who succeeded Jack Dorsey as CEO in November, quote-tweeted the poll and recited words that Musk had used on an earlier post about Twitter’s adherence to free speech principles: “the consequences of this poll will be important.” The Twitter CEO may have been lightly mocking Musk’s query, though the action still shows he’s keeping a close eye on the account of the Tesla and SpaceX chief.

Twitter’s official account posted a message on April 1 saying “we are working on an edit button,” which may have been intended as an April Fool’s joke; however it collected more than 1.3 million likes, suggesting the demand for such a facility is high.

The option to edit posts after publishing has been a longstanding request of Twitter users frustrated with the inability to fix typos on published posts or correct misstatements on viral tweets. Musk’s poll had over 1.5 million votes late on Monday, split 75 per cent for “yse” and 25 per cent for “on.”