Elon Musk says he would overturn Trump's Twitter ban

vt-author-image

By Asiya Ali

Article saved!Article saved!

Elon Musk has stated that he would reverse Donald Trump's ban on Twitter if his bid to buy the platform is successful.

Last month, the 50-year-old billionaire agreed to a $44 billion deal to purchase the social media platform and has been sharing his plans for Twitter's future ever since.

In particular, Musk has stated that one of his many priorities is to make Twitter a platform that welcomes free speech. So intrinsically, many people questioned whether he would reinstate former US President Donald Trump's Twitter account.

Per BBC News, the SpaceX founder was at the Financial Times Future of the Car summit on Tuesday and shared his thoughts on the issue.

"I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake," Musk said.

"It alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice," he added, before stating that the ban "was a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme."

In early 2021, Trump's Twitter account was permanently suspended "due to the risk of further incitement of violence" following the January 6 Capitol riots. It was the first major platform to ban the then-president.

The POTUS has already stated publically that he would not return to Twitter even if his account is reinstated, and will instead use his platform - the TRUTH Social.

wp-image-1263152730 size-full
Credit: Twitter

However, via Guardian, Trump's political opponents believe he would not pass up on the opportunity to broadcast to his audience on the popular site.

The richest man in the world also said: "I would reverse the permanent ban but I don't own Twitter yet so this is not a thing that will definitely happen."

Musk revealed that he had spoken to Twitter co-founder and CEO Jake Dorsey, 48, on the subject of removing social media accounts that write offensive tweets.

"He and I are of the same mind that permanent bans should be extremely rare and reserved for accounts that are bots or scam accounts," he said.

Musk expressed that if a user tweeted something "illegal or otherwise destructive to the world" then a temporary suspension would suffice rather than permanently removing users. He also added that the post should be made invisible.

In his announcement tweet, he stated that he hopes to make the algorithm "open source to increase trust" and said at the event that he welcomes suggestions from people on how to improve it.

The billionaire reiterated the criticism that Twitter has a strong left bias, adding that it's because of its origins of being headquartered in San Francisco. Twitter is "coming out of an environment that is very far left", he said.

"Victory would be the far-right 10% and the far left 10% are equally upset," he then added.

Featured image credit: PA Images / Alamy.