Elon Musk plans to reverse the permanent Twitter ban on former President Donald Trump.
“I would reverse the permanent ban,” Musk announced at FT Live’s Future of the Car conference.
Musk has become outspoken on the issue of free speech, and started making advances to purchase Twitter in April. He offered $43 billion for the social media site, and the platform will become a privately held company when the transaction is complete, Deseret News reported.
“Banning Trump from Twitter didn’t end Trump’s voice, it will amplify it among the right and this is why it’s morally wrong and flat out stupid,” Musk said at the event, per Financial Times.
Why was Trump banned from Twitter?
The platform was a favorite place for Trump to communicate with his constituents. He was an active user and his tweets often dominated the news cycle, according to BBC News.
In January 2021, Trump was permanently banned from Twitter, after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Twitter said that the former president was banned because he violated “the platform’s rules against violence incitement, a decision the company has said was headed by Dorsey,” according to CNN.
Will Trump come back to Twitter?
Trump launched a new social media platform, Truth Social, earlier this year. The platform had a rocky start, struggling with crashes, copyright infringement accusations and a waitlist of almost 1.5 million users, Newsweek reported.
However, since Musk made the announcement about Twitter, interest in the platform resumed, with Truth Social beating out Twitter on Apple’s app chart, per Newsweek.
“My theory is that there is a rising tide of users who want to share their opinions without having to deal with a biased content filter,” John Brandon wrote for Forbes.
CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group Devin Nunes recently appeared on “Mornings with Maria” on Fox Business. He told Maria Bartiromo what he thinks Trump will do if he is allowed back on Twitter.
“Well, I can only report what he said. He said he really doesn’t have an interest in going on Twitter, and my guess is that would continue to be the same,” Nunes said, according to Newsweek.
In April, Trump told CBS News, “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.”