Elon Musk To Let Trump Return To Twitter
Elon Musk plans on reversing Twitter’s permanent ban on former President Donald Trump once he completes his takeover of the social media platform.
“I do think that 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,” Musk said at a Financial Times event on Tuesday.
Musk went on to criticize Twitter’s decision to ban Trump as “foolish,” claiming the action undermined the public’s trust in the social media platform.
“Banning Trump from Twitter didn’t end Trump’s voice. It will amplify it on among the right. And this is why it’s morally wrong and flat out stupid,” Musk said.
According to Musk, Twitter should only issue permanent bans on accounts belonging to bots, spammers and scammers. For all other accounts, the company should resort to imposing temporary suspensions on the account or making the tweet invisible when the content breaks the rules.
Musk also said his main goal with buying Twitter is to make it an open forum, but the ban on Trump has fractured the user base. He pointed to how the former US President has since created a competing social media platform in Truth Social, which is now attracting many conservative users.
“And so I think this could be frankly worse than having a single forum where everyone can debate,” Musk said.
“That doesn’t mean somebody gets to say whatever they want to say,” the Tesla CEO later added. “If they say something that is illegal, or otherwise, you know, destructive to the world, then there should be perhaps a time-out. A temporary suspension, or that particular tweet should be made invisible, or have very limited traction.”
Twitter's former CEO
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