Elon Musk has revealed that he would reverse Twitter’s permanent ban of Donald Trump after completing his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform.
Speaking virtually at a conference in London on Tuesday, Musk said that Twitter’s move to ban the former US president ‘was a morally bad decision and foolish in the extreme’.
‘I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,’ added Musk, specifically addressing Trump’s removal from Twitter for the first time since launching his takeover of the company last month.
Trump was banned from Twitter in January of 2021, in response to his supporters storming the US Capitol and attempting to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
Trump, who recently launched his own competing service dubbed Truth Social, has previously claimed that he would not return to Twitter even if he was invited back.
Appearing virtually at the FT Future of the Car conference, Musk called Twitter’s ban of Trump a ‘mistake’.
‘It alienated a large part of the country, and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice. He is now going to be on Truth Social,’ said Musk. ‘So I think this may end up being frankly worse than having a single forum where everyone can debate. I guess the answer is that I would reverse the permanent ban.’
Musk said that he had discussed the subject of permanent bans, or ‘permabans’ with Twitter, co-founder Jack Dorsey, whom he said shared his opinion.
‘He and I are of the same mind, which is that permanent bans should be extremely rare, and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or spam/scam accounts,’ said Musk.
‘I would reverse the permaban [of Trump]’ he said, adding: ‘obviously I don’t own Twitter yet, so this is not something that will definitely happen.’
But my opinion, and I want to be clear that Jack Dorsey shares this opinion, is that we should not have permabans,’ said Musk.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Musk also said that his acquisition of Twitter, which is still subject to a shareholder approval, could close well before the October deadline.
‘Just objectively it is not a done deal,’ he said. ‘The best case scenario is that it would perhaps be done in two or three months.’
Trump launched his Truth Social app in February, but the service’s debut was plagued by technical issues.
Musk previously mocked the Twitter clone, calling Truth Social a ‘terrible name’ and joking that it should be called Trumpet instead. He has said that Truth Social only exists because Twitter ‘censored free speech’.
Trump had previously said that he had no intention of rejoining Twitter even if his account was reinstated, telling Fox News last month that he would instead focus on his own platform, Truth Social.
‘I am not going on Twitter. I am going to stay on Truth,’ Trump told the network. ‘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.’
Trump was originally banned from Twitter for allegedly inciting violence with his unsupported claims that the election had been stolen.
Twitter said at the time that after a review of how Trump’s tweets ‘are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter’ that it had banned his account ‘due to the risk of further incitement of violence.’
The ban was handed down on January 8, 2021, two days after Trump loyalists attacked the US Capitol.
His final tweet read: ‘To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.’
Twitter said in a statement at the time that they interpreted this remark as a potential call to violence, by further calling into question the legitimacy of the election and signaling to supporters that the inauguration would be a ‘safe’ target for violence.
Conservatives, who have accused San Francisco-based Twitter of bias against right-leaning views, have cheered the prospect of Trump´s return.
“He (Trump) ought to be everywhere he can,” Republican Senator Rick Scott told reporters when asked about Musk’s comments.
“We ought to have free speech in this country. We shouldn’t have social media companies that are restricting people’s ability to get their message out,” added Scott.
Democrats have said Trump´s potential reinstatement could constitute a threat to democracy, although some hope that a frequently-tweeting Trump could upset their base and rev up turnout in the November midterm congressional elections.
Earlier on Tuesday, Twitter shares fell to a level that indicated the stock market took the view for the first time that it was unlikely that Musk would make the acquisition for $44 billion, as he originally agreed.
Developing story, more to follow.