Billionaire Elon Musk “defends” Donald Trump in the Twitter case

Mr. Musk said: “Permanent ban should only be extremely rare and really reserved for robot accounts or scams, spam… I think it’s not right to ban former President Donald Trump. thought it was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and didn’t stop Trump’s voice.”

Mr. Musk, who is expected to become Twitter’s interim chief executive officer (CEO) after taking over the company, stressed: “I will reverse the ban permanently. I don’t own Twitter yet. Because So, this is not a sure thing.”

Billionaire Elon Musk said he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former President Donald Trump. Photo: Reuters

According to CNBC, Twitter permanently locked Trump’s personal account in January 2021 after an attack by his supporters in the US Congress. Twitter at the time said it had made the decision after the riots on January 6 “due to the risk of further incitement to violence”. Mr. Trump was an active Twitter user at the time with more than 80 million followers on the social network.

However, last month, Mr. Trump said he would not return to Twitter, even if he had the opportunity. After Twitter’s ban, former President Trump launched Truth Social, an alternative social networking platform.

On May 10, the CEO of electric car companies Tesla and SpaceX also admitted that Mr. Trump said he would not return to the platform. However, some people close to Musk said they expected Trump to return to Twitter.

White House officials and Democratic strategists are concerned about the world’s richest billionaire taking over Twitter ahead of the 2024 US presidential election. Some members of President Joe Biden’s administration are increasingly worried. that Mr. Musk will allow former President Trump and members of the Republican Party, who have had their Twitter accounts locked, back into the social network.