Elon Musk said in a tweet on Tuesday that he will step down as chief executive of Twitter after finding a replacement.

"After that, I will just run the software and servers teams," Musk added.

The statement came after a Twitter poll that he launched on Sunday asking whether he should step down as head of the company and vowed to abide by the poll results.

Musk had replied to one Twitter user's comment on the original poll that "There is no successor."

He told a Delaware court last month that he would reduce his time at Twitter and eventually find a new leader to run the company.

1. A timeline of Elon's takeover of Twitter

Twitter has been experiencing a series of chaotic actions since Elon Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, bought the social network.

He had fired top management and laid off about half of its workforce since onboarding, while seesawing how much to charge for the subscription service Twitter Blue.

Musk has also let go of contract content moderators and disbanded a council of trust and safety advisors that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform.

AP said some of Musk's actions have "unnerved Twitter advertisers and turned off users."

Before Musk's poll, Twitter had a policy update prohibiting accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social media firms and content that contains links or usernames for rival platforms.

Musk apologized for not having a vote on major policy changes and updated with a poll by Twitter support a few hours later.

Musk also suspended the accounts of several journalists over a controversy on publishing public data about the billionaire's plane but restored them after receiving criticism from government officials, advocacy groups and several journalism organizations on December 16.

2. Musk's tumultuous Twitter acquisition

Musk committed to taking over Twitter in April, but soon tried to step back from the deal. 

He said in July he was canceling the contract because he was misled by Twitter over the number of fake "bot" accounts, which were allegations that the company has rejected.

After Musk sought to terminate the sale, Twitter filed a lawsuit to hold Musk to the agreement. However, with the trial looming, the unpredictable billionaire revived his takeover plan.

Musk's $44 billion takeover of Twitter in October has been marked by chaos and controversy, with some investors questioning if he is too distracted to also properly run his electric vehicle automaker Tesla Inc, in which he is personally involved in production and engineering, according to Reuters.

(With input from agencies)