Elon Musk said on Tuesday that he would reverse the Twitter ban on former President Donald Trump once his deal to take over Twitter is completed.
Musk revealed at the Financial Times' Future of the Car conference that Twitter's decision to ban Trump back in January 2021 was a "mistake."
"I do think that 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," the billionaire said.
Musk noted that the ban led Trump to go on Truth Social, and so will other people on the "right," and for him, this is "frankly worse" than having them engage in a single forum.
He previously said that Twitter should be more "reluctant" in deleting certain content and be cautious with issuing permanent bans.
Jack Dorsey, the bird app's co-founder, and former CEO, responded in a tweet saying that he "agrees" that there should be no permanent bans on Twitter users, citing them as a "failure."
I do agree. There are exceptions (CSE, illegal behaviour, spam or network manipulation, etc), but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don't work, which I wrote about here after the event (and called for a resilient social media protocol): https://t.co/fQ9KnrCQGX
— jack (@jack) May 10, 2022
Trump's permaban was issued after the Capital Riot on January 6. Twitter cited that he violated the platform's rules against violent incitement. This decision was made during Dorsey's term on the platform.
However, the former President has already said that he would not return to Twitter even if his ban were lifted. He is currently promoting his own social media app, Truth Social.
"Not Yet a Done Deal"
Musk noted at the event that the restoration of Trump's account and his acquisition of Twitter are not yet a done deal.
"I will say that I don't own Twitter yet, so this is not a thing that will definitely happen, because what if I don't own Twitter?," he said.
There is still no assurance that Musk will push through with the deal, especially with the downturn of Tesla (TSLA) shares over the past month and the current value of Twitter (TWTR) stock at $47.26, which is below his offer price of $54.20 per share.
But this didn't prevent the billionaire from laying down his plans for the social platform. From the very start, he considered himself a free speech absolutist and criticized Twitter's content moderation.
He has advocated for a "free speech for all" in the bird app, which instantly drew concerns over activist organizations, alleging that Musk's era will turn Twitter into a "megaphone to extremists" and could reverse their welcoming steps on banning users who sow misinformation and hate speech.
Musk's recent announcement could affirm the worries of these organizations.
Musk also claimed that Twitter holds a political bias leaning toward the "left," resonating with the same claims made by prominent figures on the right.
"I think Twitter needs to be much more evenhanded. It currently has a strong left bias because it's based in San Francisco," he said.
He added that people don't "necessarily intend" to be on the left side because the environment that they come from is just "very far left."
The billionaire said this despite Twitter's previous statement that its algorithms and employees do not discriminate against any political point of view.
If his acquisition will finally sealed, Musk will lift Trump's ban and make permanent bans "extremely rare" and will only apply to spam accounts or bots.
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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
