Elon Musk says he’d reverse Trump’s 2021 Twitter ban. This is what you need to know

Elon Musk says he’d reverse Trump’s 2021 Twitter ban. This is what you need to know
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. May 30, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

As many of us remember, Twitter permanently suspended former US President Trump from the platform in January 2021 following the attack on the US Capitol, which was led by his MAGA supporters.

In a summit about the future of cars on Tuesday, Elon Musk said he would reverse the 2021 Twitter ban on Donald Trump if it were up to him. And, assuming this whole US$44 billion purchase goes smoothly, it’s about to be up to him.

His argument? Permanent bans undermine trust in Twitter, and, in this instance, it didn’t actually diminish Trump’s voice; it just made it so that he was really only talking to people on the far right.

Key comments:

“I do think that 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,” Musk said during a virtual appearance at the Financial Times Future of the Car summit. “Banning Trump from Twitter didn’t end Trump’s voice, it will amplify it among the right and this is why it’s morally wrong and flat out stupid."

“If there are tweets that are wrong and bad, those should be either deleted or made invisible, and a suspension—a temporary suspension—is appropriate, but not a permanent ban,” Musk said.