If the purchase of Twitter goes through, the would-be interim CEO Elon Musk says he’d lift Trump Twitter ban.
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts… I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk said at FT Live’s Future of the Car conference. “I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
Will Elon Musk lift Trump Twitter ban?
“I would lift Trump Twitter ban” added Musk, who is expected to become interim CEO following the takeover. “I don’t own Twitter yet. So this is not like a thing that will definitely happen, because what if I don’t own Twitter?” he proclaims.
What caused Trump Twitter ban?
Twitter permanently suspended Trump from the platform in January 2021 following the protests of republican voters about the voter fraud. The company said it made the decision after the Jan. 6 protests “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Trump was an avid tweeter and at the time nearly had 90 million followers on the platform. After his ban Twitter shares lost 12% value.
When Elon Musk announced he wanted to take control of the firm in order to make it a free speech platform, many people wondered whether he would welcome Trump back. A few weeks ago, Trump said that if given the opportunity again, he wouldn’t return to Twitter.
“No, I won’t be going back on Twitter,” Trump said. Following the ban, Trump launched Truth Social (only available to the U.S. currently) which is a free speech alternative to Big Tech’s censor happy platforms.
“I will be on Truth Social within the week. It’s on schedule. We have a lot of people signed up. I like Elon Musk. I like him a lot. He’s an excellent individual. We did a lot for Twitter when I was in the White House. I was disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter. I won’t be going back on Twitter,” Trump says.
Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, acknowledged that Trump said he wouldn’t return to Twitter on Tuesday. Still, people close to him say they believe Trump will go back to Twitter anyhow.
The White House has been concerned about a Musk Twitter takeover ahead of the 2024 presidential election, as they don’t want their hypocritical, censor happy propaganda platform to be disrupted. Some members of the Biden administration had grown increasingly concerned that Musk would let Trump and other Republican activists who had been banned from Twitter back on the site, they want Trump Twitter ban to stay, palpable from their introduction of Ministry of Truth-like (from Orwell’s 1984) department called “Disinformation Governance Board.”
