Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, confirmed that he will restore the former US President’s Twitter account should his acquisition of the social media platform successfully close later this year.
Twitter announced a permanent suspension of former US President Donald Trump’s account last year “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company said. This comes after people stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021, days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Trump wrote that he was not going to attend the inauguration in one of the tweets that got his account permanently banned.
“I would reverse the permaban,” the Tesla CEO said during an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday.
“We should not have permabans,” he said.
The billionaire said that the decision was, “a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme,” according to Business Insider SA.
“I think permabans fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinion,” Musk explained.
“If there are tweets that are wrong and bad, those should be either deleted or made invisible, and a temporary suspension is appropriate. But not a permanent ban,” he added.
Musk said that the ban didn’t end Trump’s voice and that it instead amplified it among the right, and that’s why he thinks it was an unwise decision to permanently ban him from the social media platform.
It is, however, not clear if Trump would come back if his account would be reinstated. According to Business Insider, Trump said he would not come back but would instead stick to the social media service, Truth Social, a platform he started after he exited Twitter.
By Zintle NkohlaÂ
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