Elon Musk says that he would lift the Twitter ban on former US President, Donald Trump, claiming that shutting him off the platform “alienated a large part of the country.”
“I would reverse the permanent ban,” the Tesla 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 is still awaiting the approval of shareholders and regulators, but he has voiced enthusiasm for making Twitter a free speech platform.
“Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square,” Musk said prior to his bid for the company, adding that he wanted to make it an “inclusive arena for free speech”
He says it was a mistake to boot Trump from Twitter.
“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.
He argued that permanent bans at Twitter should be rare, and reserved for accounts that are spam, scams or run by software “bots.”
“That doesn’t mean that somebody gets to say whatever they want to say,” Musk said.
“If they say something that is illegal or otherwise just destructive to the world, then there should be perhaps a timeout, a temporary suspension, or that particular tweet should be made invisible or have very limited attraction.”
Musk noted that Mr Trump has stated publicly that he would not come back to Twitter if permitted, opting instead to stick with his own social network, Truth Social, which has not gained traction thus far.
Critics of Musk’s plans for Twitter have accused him of “opening the floodgates of hate and disinformation”.
However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), however, backed Musk’s view on the Trump ban.
“Elon Musk’s decision to re-platform President Trump is the right call,” ACLU director Anthony Romero said. “Like it or not, president Trump is one of the most important political figures in this country, and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech.”