Elon Musk ready to reinstate Donald Trump on Twitter: he explains himself
Steph Deschamps / May 11, 2022
Banning the former U.S. president was a mistake, because it alienated much of the country and ultimately did not prevent Donald Trump from being heard, justified Elon Musk, future owner of the social network.
He's not even at the helm of Twitter yet, but Elon Musk, who plans to buy it for more than 40 billion euros, is taking direction. The current boss of Tesla and SpaceX had already said his ambition to make Twitter a space for free speech. This would therefore include the return of Donald Trump on the platform, he raised Tuesday during a live conference.
I think it was a mistake, because it alienated much of the country and ultimately did not stop Donald Trump from being heard, explained Elon Musk, calling the decision to ban him morally wrong and senseless. Will the appeal be heard? We'll see, but at the end of April, Donald Trump had told Fox News that he didn't want him: I hope Elon buys Twitter because he'll make improvements and he's a good guy, but I'm staying on Truth.
Definitive bans should be extremely rare and reserved, for example, for fake accounts, said Elon Musk. That doesn't mean that anyone can say whatever they want, if they say something illegal or destructive to the world, added Elon Musk. But then temporary suspensions or tweets that are made invisible or with very limited reach should be considered. But I think permanent bans fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a public place where anyone can express their opinion, he said.
The former president of the United States had seen his Twitter account suspended after the assault of the Capitol by several of his supporters. We have suspended the account indefinitely because of the risk of further incitement to violence, had confirmed the platform, in January 2021, acting the final suspension of the president who, in recent years, used Twitter on a daily basis, after which he had created his own social network. Facebook had also banned him.