International

Elon Musk To Lift Trump’s Twitter Ban

Published

3 years ago

May 11, 2022.

Yinka Akanbi

Trump was booted from Twitter and other online platforms after supporters fired up by his tweets alleging election fraud attacked the US Capitol last year
The Tesla chief’s $44-billion deal to buy Twitter must still get the backing of shareholders and regulators

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EKO HOT BLOG reports that Elon Musk on Tuesday said he would lift Twitter’s ban on former US president Donald Trump if Musk’s deal to buy the global messaging platform is successful.

“I would reverse the permanent ban,” the billionaire said at a Financial Times conference, noting that he doesn’t own Twitter yet, so “this is not like a thing that will definitely happen.”

The Tesla chief’s $44-billion deal to buy Twitter must still get the backing of shareholders and regulators, but he has voiced enthusiasm for less content moderation and “time-outs” instead of bans.

“I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk said.

“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.”

Trump was booted from Twitter and other online platforms after supporters fired up by his tweets alleging election fraud attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a deadly and failed bid to stop Joe Biden from being certified as the victor in the US presidential election.

Musk said he and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey are of similar mind in that permanent bands should be rare, reserved for accounts that are spam, scams or run by software “bots.”

FURTHER READING

“That doesn’t mean that somebody gets to say whatever they want to say,” Musk said.

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