Elon Musk appears set to step down as the head of Twitter after users voting in a public poll run by the billionaire said they wanted him to step aside.

“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” Mr Musk tweeted on Sunday night, along with the options Yes or No.

When the poll closed on Monday morning, 57.5% had voted “Yes”, after more than 17.5 million votes were cast.

Mr Musk only took over the social media firm two months ago.

It is unclear if or when the SpaceX and Tesla boss would hand over the day-to-day running of the social media giant, which he purchased in October in a 44 billion US dollar deal (£36 billion), but in a series of tweets posted after announcing the poll, Mr Musk said there was “no successor” in line to take over.

He wrote: “The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.

“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.

“As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”

The billionaire’s reign as chief executive as well as the owner of Twitter has been turbulent.

Since taking over the company in October, Mr Musk has laid off more than half the company’s staff, removed the entire board, dissolved its trust and safety council and made a number of controversial moderation decisions, including allowing some suspended accounts such as those of rapper Kanye West and Donald Trump to return to the site.

West, now known as Ye, has been been suspended again over antisemitic statements, while former US president Mr Trump is still to tweet from his restored account.

In recent days, the billionaire has also overseen the suspension and then reinstatement of a number of journalists’ accounts over their coverage of him following the suspension of the Twitter account @ElonJet, which used publicly available data to automatically track Mr Musk’s private jet, an account he had previously said he would not remove because of his free speech beliefs.