Elon Musk appeared to put his future in charge of Twitter on the line, posting a poll asking whether he should step down and vowing to abide by the results.

"Should I step down as head of Twitter?" he tweeted, asking the site's users to click yes or no.

"I will abide by the results of this poll."

With four hours until the end of the poll on Monday, 56.7 percent of nearly 14 million respondents had voted yes.

In Twitter exchanges with followers, Musk said he did not have a replacement lined up.

"No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor," he said.

Making a "fun suggestion" to Musk, MIT research scientist Lex Fridman offered to run the platform for a bit for no salary.

In a downbeat response, Musk said Twitter was "in the fast lane to bankruptcy."

"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?" Musk asked.

The unpredictable billionaire posted the poll shortly after apparently acknowledging he had made a mistake banning Twitter users from promoting their accounts on rival social media platforms.

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

The sudden shift in the rules was the latest in a series of controversial changes made by Musk since he took over the company in October — upheaval that has led a growing number of users to encourage followers to view their posts on other sites.

Twitter had announced that the company would "no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms."

Users would thus be barred, for example, from posting "Follow me @username on Instagram," Twitter said.