The billionaire wants to make Twitter bans really rare if he takes over
Elon Musk has said he will reverse the Donald Trump’s Twitter ban if his bid to buy the social media platform is success, as part of his plan to make permanent bans “extremely rare”.
Trump was permanently banned from Twitter back in January 2021, following attacks his supporters carried out on the US Capitol.
At the time, Twitter said it came to the decision after the former US president repeatedly violated company regulations – ruling that his Tweets were “highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021”.
But now, Musk, who agreed a $44 million takeover bid last month, has said he will reverse Trump’s ban if he takes over.
Speaking virtually at the Financial Times Future of the Car Summit in London on Tuesday, Musk said: “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.
“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.”
“I would reverse the permanent ban,” Musk added. “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?”
The tech tycoon noted how Trump will be on his own social media platform, Truth Social, which the former president’s created as a direct challenge to Twitter, Facebook and other mainstream platforms. Truth Social encourages an “open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology,” according to a description on its website.
Musk said: “Trump is now going to be on Truth Social, as will a large part of the right in the United States, and so I think this can frankly end up worse than having a single form where everyone can debate.
“I think permanent bans just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinion. I think it was a morally bad decision [to ban him] and foolish in the extreme.”
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