I'm not sure about that. He also had the "be careful what you wish for" tweet, which indicates he had something in mind if the vote was to step down. Also, I can't imagine he planned to put so much energy into this one part of his empire forever.

He is a/b testing ways to make money and to induce people to pay for blue checks or other IAPs. So he thinks if a poll that will get multiple millions of votes and tries to see how high a conversion rate is likely with a highly engaging topic like “how much do you hate me”.

I think he is just trying to find ways to drive people to make these purchases.