Elon Musk said he would allow former President Donald Trump back on Twitter, calling Trump’s ban from the platform “morally wrong.”
From The Blaze:
Musk made the comments while being interviewed on FT Live’s “Future of the Car” conference.
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts,” said Musk. “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.”
Trump was banned from Twitter as protesters broke into the U.S. Capitol after his Jan. 6 speech, with Twitter claiming the former president was inciting violence.
But Musk said he would reverse that decision as owner, though he cautioned that he was not owner yet so couldn’t promise Trump would be back on the platform anytime soon.
Musk has been critical of Twitter’s policies on free speech during his bid to buy the company, with the billionaire vowing to change the way the platform moderates content when he is in charge.
He argued that banning Trump did the opposite of what Twitter had hope, amplifying Trump’s voice among his followers:
“And this is why it is morally wrong and flat-out stupid,” Musk concluded.
But Trump may not rush back to the platform if Musk follows through on reversing the ban, telling Fox News last month that he will continue to use the TRUTH Social platform he founded.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump said. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it, and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH.”
