Elon Musk Vows to 'Reverse' Twitter's 'Foolish' Ban of Trump
Social media company's new owners says he 'would reverse the permanent ban'
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Elon Musk has vowed to "reverse the permanent ban" of President Donald Trump when he takes control of Twitter, blasting the move to shut down the 45th POTUS's account as "foolish."
"Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam, scam accounts," Musk said in a new interview.
"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."
"I would reverse the permanent ban," Musk added.
"I don't own Twitter yet. So this is not like a thing that will definitely happen, because what if I don't own Twitter?"
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Musk, who last week secured $7 billion from new investors for his $44bn takeover, continued: "I think permanent bans just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinion.
"I think it was a morally bad decision [to ban him] and foolish in the extreme."
The Tesla and SpaceX boss claimed his disapproval for permanent bans was shared by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.
Speaking to the Financial Times at a summit, Musk said Trump is "now going to be on Truth Social [another social media platform] as will a large part of the right in the United States and so I think this can frankly end up worse than having a single forum where everyone can debate."
Responding to Musk's remarks, Dorsey wrote on Twitter: "I do agree.
"There are exceptions (CSE, illegal behavior, spam or network manipulation, etc), but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don't work."
Joe Biden's White House said it was a decision for a private sector company to make on who will or will not be allowed on their platform.
Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter in January 2021 following the riot at the US Capitol.
The tech company said it made the decision after the Jan. 6 riot "due to the risk of further incitement of violence."
Trump at the time had more than 80 million followers on the platform.
But once Musk announced he was interested in taking over the company in part to make it a free speech platform, questions arose about whether he would invite Trump back on.
On Tuesday, the 50-year-old entrepreneur said if someone writes on Twitter "something that is illegal... then there should perhaps be a timeout, a temporary suspension or that particular tweet should be made invisible or have very limited traction."
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Trump said last month he would not return to the company if he had the chance.
"No, I won't be going back on Twitter," he told CNBC's Joe Kernen.
"I will be on Truth Social within the week.
"It's on schedule.
"We have a lot of people signed up.
"I like Elon Musk. I like him a lot.
"He's an excellent individual," Trump said.
"We did a lot for Twitter when I was in the White House.
"I was disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter.
"I won't be going back on Twitter."
