If Elon Musk succeeds in buying Twitter, he said Tuesday that he would immediately reverse the permanent ban on Trump’s account.
Musk made the statements while being interviewed on the “Future of the Car” show conference.
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and used for accounts that are bots or spam,” said Musk. “I believe it was wrong to ban Donald Trump. I believe it was a mistake because it alienated a large portion of the population and did not, in the end, result in Trump’s lack of a voice.”
Some of Donald Trump’s followers launched a campaign to overturn the official election results in order to prevent Biden from becoming president after he won the 2020 race. Twitter claimed it banned Trump because he was inciting violence by continuing to claim the election was fraudulent, but many people accused the firm of being politically motivated.
“I would cancel the permanent ban,” Musk continued. “I have not yet acquired Twitter. So this is not something that will definitely happen because I do not own Twitter yet.”
Many believed that after it was revealed that Musk had struck a deal to acquire Twitter for around $44 billion, the previous president’s account might be reactivated.
Even if the ban was lifted, Trump made it clear in a statement shortly afterward that he had no desire to return to Twitter because he thought the platform had become mundane. He added that he would be utilizing his own social media network, TRUTH social.
“I’m not going to return to Twitter, and I’m staying on TRUTH,” Trump said to Fox News in April. “Because he’s a nice guy, Elon should buy Twitter so that he can make changes to it, but I intend to stay on TRUTH.”
When Musk said that shutting down Trump “only served to amplify his voice among the right,” he was referring to this remark.
“And this is why it’s immoral and downright stupid,” Musk concluded.
Last week, in a separate lawsuit, Trump lost his bid to have his Twitter account reinstated. The judge ruled that because Twitter is a private company rather than a government agency, it did not violate Trump’s rights.
