Fox News Hosts Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin are now back on Twitter as the social media giant gets acquired by Tesla CEO in a $44 billion deal. Carlson was locked out of his account after a violation of Twitter's terms of service and Levin left the social media giant on his own following Trump's suspension after the Capital riot.
As Musk plans to make Twitter a 'safe haven' for completely free speech, Monday evening saw Carlson and Levin officially announce their return on the platform.
Musk in a statement explained, "free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated, Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."
Carlson was suspended from the social media giant on 23 March after he endorsed a tweets from the Babylon Bee over a joke naming US Assistant Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine – a transgender woman – the site's "Man of the Year" for 2022 as well as another tweet from Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk who said Levine had "spend 54 years of his life as a man."
The Babylon Bee was accused violating Twitter's rules against "hateful conduct" over the joke and was locked out of its account last month.
Fox Business reports that Carlson took a screenshot of both tweets and commented, "But wait. Both these tweets are true." After being suspended, Carlson was offered his account back on the condition that he deleted the tweet, but that was something he would never do.
In case of Levin, he voluntarily left Twitter when former president Donald Trump's account was permanently suspended following the capital riots over concerns of "inciting violence."
According to the Washington Examiner, he said at the time: "I have suspended my own Twitter account in protest against Twitter's fascism. I ask all my followers to join me now on Parler and Rumble." However, "thanks to new ownership" Levin announced his comeback after more than a year. Carlson was also not far behind as he made his comeback public on Monday evening.
According to Bloomberg, with plans to make Twitter private, Musk revealed that he wants to be "cautious with permanent bans." In a tweet on Monday he said that he hopes "even my worst critics remain on twitter, because that is what free speech means."
However, the biggest mystery is whether we'll see a similar comeback announcement from former President Donald Trump. There are chances of his return to Twitter as the platform is expected to go private soon but reports of claims floating around that he has no intention whatsoever to return say otherwise.
Fox News reports that less than an hour of the twitter deal being announced the former president made it clear that he will formally join his own 'TRUTH' Social in the coming week, as planned.
"I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH, I hope Elon buys Twitter because he'll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH," he told Fox News adding later that he will begin "TRUTHing" in the coming week.
TRUTH Social is the Trump Media & Technology Group social media platform, which was officially launched last month and has been active under its brand-new cloud services for four days, after having beta-tested since February. Former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is the company's CEO.
"We're taking in millions of people, and what we're finding is that the response on TRUTH is much better than being on Twitter, Twitter has bots and fake accounts, and we are doing everything we can," Trump explained to the Fox News in response to his reluctance towards returning on Twitter.
While the former president did not comment on whether he is in touch with the Tesla CEO, a source familiar told Fox News that both personalities share a very good relationship and are friendly.
When asked if he views there might be a competition between TRUTH and Musk-owned Twitter, the former president replied that it would be more of a 'positive development' in the social media space rather than a competition, "I think it is good. We want liberty and justice and fairness in our country, and the more we can have open, the better," Trump said.
"TRUTH Social will be a voice for me," Trump continued. "And that's something nobody else can get," Fox News reports.
