Elon Musk's BREXIT Moment?

The risks of asking for a referendum without know how people will vote

Elon Musk might wish he had paid a little more attention to recent history before asking Twitter users whether he should step down as CEO. “I will abide by the results of the poll,” he tweeted. It’s doubtful he was secretly looking for a way to give up control of the company for which he recently paid $44 billion. No one wants to leave because of a no-confidence vote. Musk’s problem seems to be that he misjudged the sentiment among voting Twitter users. He and his inner circle most likely expected a full-throated endorsement in the “do I stay or leave” poll. Those results could then be championed to show critics that Twitter’s user back the way Musk runs the company.

David Cameron, the former British Prime Minister, made the biggest political gamble of his career when he promised publicly in January 2013 to hold an in/out referendum on the U.K.’s membership in the European Union. Cameron wanted Britain to remain in the E.U. He and his advisors knew there was a risk to asking the pu…