AFP

Twitter users voted on Monday to oust owner Elon Musk as chief executive in a highly unscientific poll he organized and promised to honor, just weeks after he took charge of the social media giant.

A total of 57.5 percent of more than 17 million accounts voted for him to step down. Musk, who also runs car maker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX, has not yet reacted publicly to the results.

“The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive,” the South African-born billionaire tweeted before the vote closed.

In a response to another tweet, he added: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.”

Musk has fully owned Twitter since October 27 and has repeatedly courted controversy as CEO, sacking half of its staff, readmitting far-right figures to the platform, suspending journalists and trying to charge for previously free services.

Analysts have also pointed out that the stock price of Tesla has slumped by one-third since Musk’s Twitter takeover. The share price briefly rallied by 3.3 percent on Monday before fading.

“It’s hard to ignore the numbers since [the Twitter] deal closed,” tweeted investment expert Gary Black, saying he reckoned Tesla’s board was putting pressure on Musk to quit his Twitter role.

In discussions with users after posting his latest poll, Musk renewed his warnings that the platform could be heading for bankruptcy.

– ‘Won’t happen again’ –

Resorting to Twitter’s polling feature has been a favorite strategy of Musk’s to push through policy decisions, including the reinstatement of the account of former president Donald Trump.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which defends press freedom around the world, said the polls were a “crude and cynical” ploy.

“These methods appear to be democratic procedures, but in reality they are… the opposite of democracy,” said the group’s head, Christophe Deloire.

Unpredictable entrepreneur Musk posted his latest poll shortly after trying to extricate himself from yet another controversy.

On Sunday, Twitter users were told they would no longer be able to promote content from other social media sites.

But Musk seemed to reverse course a few hours later, writing that the policy would be limited to “suspending accounts only when that account’s *primary* purpose is promotion of competitors.”

“Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again,” he tweeted.

The attempted ban had prompted howls of disapproval and even bemused Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, who had backed Musk’s takeover.

Dorsey questioned the new policy with a one-word tweet: “Why?”

– ‘Perfect storm’ –

Musk has generated a series of controversies in his short reign, one which analyst Dan Ives from Wedbush described as a “perfect storm.” 

He noted that “advertisers have run for the hills and left Twitter squarely in the red ink potentially on track to lose roughly $4 billion per year.”

Shortly after taking over the platform, Musk announced it would charge $8 per month to verify account holders’ identities, but had to suspend the “Twitter Blue” plan after an embarrassing rash of fake accounts. It has since been relaunched.

On November 4, with Musk saying the company was losing $4 million a day, Twitter laid off half of its 7,500-strong staff.

Musk also reinstated Trump’s account — though the former US president indicated he had no interest in the platform — and said Twitter would no longer work to combat Covid-19 disinformation.

In recent days, he suspended the accounts of several journalists after complaining some had published details about the movements of his private jet, which he claimed could endanger his family.

Employees of CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post were among those affected in a move that drew sharp criticism, including from the European Union and the United Nations.

Washington Post executive editor Sally Buzbee said the suspension of journalist Taylor Lorenz’s account “further undermines Elon Musk’s claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech.”

Some of the suspended accounts have since been reactivated.

On Monday, the head of the European Parliament, speaker Roberta Metsola, sent a letter to Musk inviting him to testify before the legislature, her spokesman said.

The parliament has no power to compel Musk to turn up, and his response was not immediately known.

Disgraced US movie titan Harvey Weinstein was convicted Monday of the rape and sexual assault of a woman a decade ago, in what prosecutors said was part of his “reign of terror” over aspiring young actresses in Hollywood.

The 70-year-old “Pulp Fiction” producer, who was once one of the most powerful men in the film industry, faces up to 24 years in jail, in addition to a sentence he is already serving for sex crimes in New York.

His victim in the Los Angeles case said Monday she hopes he “never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime.”

“Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013 and I will never get that back,” the woman, identified during the trial as Jane Doe #1, said in a statement.

A weeks-long trial heard graphic descriptions of encounters between the once-powerful producer and women who were trying to make their way in the world of movies.

Prosecutors painted a picture of a predatory ogre, who for years used his physical size and his professional prowess to rape and abuse women with impunity.

His victims were left terrorized and afraid for their careers if they spoke out against a man who dominated Tinseltown, prosecutors said.

Rumors of Weinstein’s impropriety had circulated in Hollywood for years, but his position at the apex of the industry meant few were prepared to challenge him.

That all changed in 2017 with the publication of bombshell allegations against him, ushering in the #MeToo movement and opening the floodgates for women to speak out against sexual violence in the workplace.

Dozens of women have since alleged they were victims of Weinstein. 

His convictions in New York, which landed him with a 23-year jail term, were followed by charges in Los Angeles, ultimately relating to four women.

On Monday after two weeks of deliberation, a jury convicted him of three of the seven counts he faced — forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object — all relating to Jane Doe #1 in a Beverly Hills hotel room in February 2013. 

The eight men and four women on the panel acquitted him of one charge of sexual battery by restraint involving another woman.

They did not reach a verdict on charges relating to the alleged assaults of two other women, one of whom was identified by her lawyers as Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench declared a mistrial on those counts.

Weinstein faces up to 18 years in prison for the counts on which he was convicted, but aggravating factors could increase that to 24 years.

Attorneys will be back in court Tuesday for arguments as to sentencing.

– ‘Despicable behavior’ –

Siebel Newsom welcomed the verdicts.

“Harvey Weinstein will never be able to rape another woman,” she said.

“He will spend the rest of his life behind bars where he belongs. Harvey Weinstein is a serial predator and what he did was rape.”

Siebel Newsom said that “throughout the trial, Weinstein’s lawyers used sexism, misogyny and bullying tactics to intimidate, demean and ridicule us survivors. This trial was a stark reminder that we as a society have work to do.”

The Oscar-winning producer had denied all the charges, with his attorney seeking to portray accusers either as liars who never had sex with his client, or as women who willingly lay on the casting couch, swapping sex for a leg up in the competitive world of filmmaking.

Weinstein, who was credited with making the careers of household names like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow, used his power to prey on and silence women, said prosecutor Marlene Martinez.

The jury heard testimony from women who said they had been tricked into being alone with Weinstein in his hotel room.

Several described how they had begged him to stop as he forced himself on them, made them perform oral sex on him, or watch him masturbate, sometimes as he groped them.

“We know the despicable behavior the defendant engaged in,” Martinez told the jury in her closing argument, adding Weinstein believed he was so powerful that people would excuse his behavior.

“‘That’s just Harvey being Harvey. That’s just Hollywood.’ And for so long that’s what everyone did. Everyone just turned their heads,” Martinez said.

“It is time for the defendant’s reign of terror to end,” she added. “It is time for the kingmaker to be brought to justice.”

Joe Biden on Monday promised he will not remain silent in the face of growing anti-Semitism in the United States, as the president hosted a White House reception celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights.

“I recognize your fear, your hurt, your worry that this vile and venom is becoming too normal,” Biden said as he stood next to a menorah, a traditional Jewish candelabra, lit by guests to mark the second of the festival’s eight nights. 

“Silence is complicity,” said the president. “We must not remain silent… I will not be silent. America will not be silent.”

Among the guests were Holocaust survivor Bronia Brandman, and Charlie Cytron-Walker, the rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel, a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas that was the scene of a hostage-taking in January.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the United States experienced a record 2,717 anti-Semitic acts such as assaults, verbal attacks and property damage in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 34 percent.

In its own report, the American Jewish Committee, one of the country’s oldest Jewish advocacy organizations, said that 39 percent of US Jews acknowledged they had “changed their behavior, limiting their activities and concealing their Jewishness due to concerns about anti-Semitism,” while about one in four had themselves been a victim of anti-Semitism over the past year.

Experts have voiced concern they are witnessing a trivialization of anti-Jewish rhetoric, highlighted by public figures including the rapper Kanye West, who recently blurted out “I like Hitler” during an online interview with a conspiracy theorist.

For his part, former president Donald Trump sparked a wave of outrage for dining with a known white supremacist and Holocaust denier last month at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

The US Supreme Court halted Monday the imminent scrapping of a key policy used since Donald Trump’s administration to block migrants at the southwest border, amid worries over a surge in undocumented immigrants.

An order signed by Chief Justice John Roberts placed an emergency stay on the removal planned for Wednesday of Title 42, which allowed the government to use Covid-19 safety protocols to summarily block the entry of millions of migrants.

Roberts placed government immigration policy on temporary hold in response to a last-minute petition from 20 states arguing that ending Title 42 would create a gush in migrants that would overwhelm their services.

They cited the Department of Homeland Security predicting that border crossings, mostly by Mexicans and other Latin Americans asking for asylum, could triple to 18,000 every day.

“The greatly increased number of migrants resulting from this termination will necessarily increase the States’ law enforcement, education, and healthcare costs,” the states argued.

The move came after an appeals court in Washington ruled last Friday that there was no longer justification for using Title 42 to sweepingly reject asylum-seekers.

The policy was put in place in March 2020, in Trump’s final year in office, as the coronavirus pandemic swept into the United States.

In their petition, the mostly Republican-led states — which include border states Texas and Arizona as well as Missouri, Ohio and Virginia — asked that beyond the stay, the court take on the full case over the law.

Roberts gave the parties 24 hours to respond. That left open the possibility that Title 42 could still end this week, or, conversely, that the court could decide to keep it in place while it reviews the case more broadly.

The administration of President Joe Biden had previously accepted a lower court ruling that Title 42 was no longer justified to block asylum seekers and other migrants.

Last week the White House said the Department of Homeland Security was prepared to deal with the expected surge, but gave few details on how it would do that.

“We have an intensive all-of-government effort underway to prepare,” said White House Spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.

DHS said in a statement that Title 42 will remain in effect as a result of the high court’s stay order, and that “individuals who attempt to enter the United States unlawfully will continue to be expelled to Mexico.”

While litigation proceeds, “we will continue our preparations to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane way when the Title 42 public health order lifts,” the department said.

Conservative lawmakers swiftly commended the stay, with some urging that Title 42 be codified in US law.

Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy said he was “glad to see the Supreme Court inject some temporary sanity into the situation.”