Elon Musk, a multi-billionaire who has made a deal to buy Twitter, has said that if he took control of the social network, he would lift the ban on Donald Trump.
“I think it was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and ultimately did not prevent Donald Trump from being heard”, underlined the entrepreneur during a conference organized by the Financial Times, some days after agreeing to buy Twitter for $44 billion.
The former American president had indeed been suspended from Twitter last year, after the assault on Capitol Hill by his supporters, in reaction to the inauguration of Joe Biden at the White House. Twitter had at the time considered that Donald Trump had violated the rules of use of the platform, believing that his tweets about the inauguration of Joe Biden could constitute a form of apology for violence.
Donald Trump has since created his own social network, Truth Social, and has himself ruled out ever returning to Twitter.
“What I want to try to say (…) is that banning Trump from Twitter does not prevent him from speaking,” added Elon Musk, believing that it would even “amplify (his word) on the right”.
However, he tempered his remarks by saying that if Donald Trump returned to Twitter, he could not say everything and anything. Elon Musk, however, believes that permanent bans from the social network, such as that inflicted on the former president, “fundamentally undermine confidence in Twitter as a public place where everyone can express their opinion”.
Instead, the Tesla founder is considering timeouts, or a feature that would make certain tweets “invisible” or with “very limited scope.” With this takeover of Twitter, the richest man in the world wants to make the social network a bastion of freedom of expression, which he considers flouted by current moderation rules.