(LifeSiteNews) — Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Tuesday stated that he will reactivate former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter account if his deal to purchase the social media platform goes through, calling the decision to permanently ban Trump “foolish” and “morally wrong.”
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare,” the Tesla and SpaceX founder said during a Financial Times summit on Tuesday, explaining that the move should be reserved for fraudulent accounts or “spam/scam accounts where there’s just no legitimacy to the account at all.”
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“I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a large part of the country,” Musk said.
The billionaire affirmed during the May 10 summit he “would reverse the permanent ban” of Trump’s account if his $44 billion deal with Twitter is finalized.
Important to listen to my full explanation
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 10, 2022
Musk, a free speech proponent who is expected to become the temporary CEO of Twitter after his successful buyout of the mega-corporation, went on to explain that the throttling of Trump’s Twitter account, in addition to being “morally bad,” also failed to silence the controversial former president.
After being permanently banned from Twitter following the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Trump has since launched his own social media site called Truth Social, a platform that promotes free speech and has attracted primarily right-wing users.
According to Musk, the fallout from Twitter’s decision to ban Trump could be “frankly worse” than permitting him to remain on “a single forum where everyone can debate.”
The tech entrepreneur further explained that while he believes Twitter should not have permanent bans, he does support temporary suspensions, as well as deleting tweets or making them “invisible” if individuals “say something that is illegal” or “otherwise destructive to the world.”
Permanent bans, however, “fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinion.”
“I think [banning Trump] was a morally bad decision, and foolish in the extreme,” Musk said.
However, the billionaire noted that despite his intention to reactivate Trump’s banned account, the former president “has publicly stated that he will not be coming back to Twitter, and that he will only be on Truth Social.”
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“And the point that I’m trying to make, that’s perhaps not getting across, is that banning Trump from Twitter didn’t end Trump’s voice: it will amplify it among the right,” Musk explained. “And this is why it is morally wrong and flat-out stupid.”