Elon Musk asked his more than 95 million Twitter followers whether they trusted billionaires or politicians less, in his latest poll on the social media site. By a wide margin, his social media respondents so far say they back the rich more than the elected.

With roughly 20 hours remaining, more than 75% of respondents voted politicians as less trustworthy than billionaires from well over one million votes as of 11.15pm Eastern time. Musk, the world’s richest person, said that the use of the word billionaire as a pejorative was “morally wrong & dumb” if a person was a billionaire for building products that make millions of people happy.

He later dared Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat who has sparred with Musk on Twitter, to run the same poll with her own followers.

Last month, Musk made a US$44bil offer to buy Twitter. Weeks before the offer, Musk asked users in a Twitter poll if they wanted an edit button. In 2021, he polled Twitter users on whether he should sell a 10% stake in Tesla, which a majority supported.

 - Bloomberg