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SAN FRANCISCO – Elon Musk has said he will lift Twitter’s ban on former President Donald Trump, expressing for the first time his approach to one of the most consistent decisions before him on the social media site he is acquiring.
Twitter’s decision to ban Trump from the platform early last year was a mistake, Tesla’s chief executive said during a virtual event on Tuesday. The decision to do so alienates much of the country, and Trump still has the right to vote. Meanwhile, Trump has launched his own social media platform, which could potentially lead to even bigger problems, he added.
“I think it was a morally bad decision to be clear and stupid to the extreme,” he told an event hosted by the Financial Times.
What Elon Musk said on Twitter
Twitter banned Trump after the January 6 riots, citing the risk of further violence.
Musk agreed to buy Twitter for about $ 44 billion and said he wanted to promote freedom of speech on the platform. Musk began investing in Twitter earlier this year and spent much of March commenting on the need for an open forum – not limited to moderation – on social media, at one point asking if a new platform was needed. By April, when Musk’s investment went public, his interest in Twitter became clear.
He took advantage of the importance of the platform for democracy and global debate and criticized what he described as left-leaning in moderation decisions. Twitter objected that its efforts were aimed at minimizing harm and improving the user experience by limiting exposure to hate speech and harassment.
Musk’s view on the issue of Trump is his clearest shot so far at the current Twitter leadership, which seeks to eliminate the damage from hate speech and the potential for violence on the site. Musk criticized this approach as crude and ingrained in the left. Musk is expected to withdraw these moves and potentially replace the executives who introduced them if the deal is completed.
Twitter’s best lawyer has long considered safety and freedom of speech. Then Elon Musk called to her.
Twitter declined to comment. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump was once a prolific Twitter user, tweeting an average of 58 times a day during his first impeachment, and during his campaign and presidency he used tweets to great effect to dominate the American news cycle and political debate.
Shortly after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Twitter banned his account, citing “the risk of further incitement to violence.” A month before the riots, he tweeted: “A big protest in the District of Columbia on January 6. Be there, you will be wild! “
Trump has no plans to rejoin Twitter and has not spoken to Musk, although he agrees with Musk’s summary of the episode, a Trump adviser said on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the issue. .
Trump’s advisers are worried that if Trump rejoins Twitter, he will immediately lower the value of his company’s recently launched Twitter clone, Truth Social, from which he still wants to benefit financially.
Musk said Trump’s move to Truth Social was proof of the failure of the permanent ban.
He said the result could be a forum that is “honestly worse”, where the debate becomes split, rather than united on a platform he described as a “de facto town square”.
Musk did not go so far as to say that bans should not exist, but said that they should be extremely rare and reserved for bots and fraudulent accounts.
Asked if Trump’s behavior deserved action, Musk said “overall suspension is appropriate, but not a permanent ban.”
Elon Musk wants freedom of speech on Twitter. But for whom?
“Trump’s ban on Twitter did not end Trump’s vote – it will strengthen him on the right,” he said. “That’s why it’s morally wrong and downright stupid.”
Although Musk claims that Trump’s ban on Twitter has indeed strengthened him, the online discussion about Trump has fallen to a five-year low after his ban on Twitter, according to online analysts BuzzSumo and Zignal Labs.
Trump was banned just before he left the White House, limiting his ability to influence current events. But his first attempt to match his online audience was after the ban on Twitter, a blog he called “From Donald J.’s Bureau.” Trump “- was so unpopular that he ordered his advisers to put it in 29 days.
Trump has called on people to use Truth Social, in which he has been actively posting over the past week, spreading more than 50 “truths” and “repeat truths” – the site’s names for tweets and retweets.
But his engagement there is still small compared to his lost presence on Twitter, where many of his tweets often receive hundreds of thousands of likes, retweets and responses.
Truth’s Truth Social is in trouble as financial and technical problems grow
Trump now has just over 2 million followers on Truth Social – a small portion of the 88 million followers he gained on Twitter before the ban.
Musk also hedged that the Twitter deal is not yet complete and there are still issues that need to be resolved.
However, he said, “I guess the answer is that I would lift the permanent ban,” before adding, “I don’t own Twitter yet.”
Elizabeth Dvoskin contributed to this report.
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