Elon Musk has said he would reverse former President Donald Trump's ban on Twitter, serving up another bitter pill to his detractors on the political left. Musk said the ban on the former president was "morally wrong and flat-out stupid." The Tesla boss was speaking at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference on Tuesday.
Protecting Free Speech
There have been speculations of Trump's return to Twitter ever since Musk's $44 billion takeover offer was accepted by Twitter's board. Musk had pitched for the world's mightiest social platform as part of his commitment to protect free speech. The tech billionaire had said in unambiguous terms that the ban on Trump ran counter to the principles of free speech. He had said he would defend free speech and align with Trump's return to the platform though he disagreed with the former president on many aspects of policy.
Twitter's senior ranks collapsed in a meltdown after Musk inked the deal, the most pathetic display of which was the emotional outburst of its top lawyer Vijaya Gadde who cried afoul of the changes and went as far as to tell her colleagues that the future of Twitter was uncertain under Musk.
Taking On Activists at Twitter
Musk quickly chided Gadde, who was, incidentally, instrumental in throwing Trump out of the platform. Gadde, whose links with the Democrats were out in the open, had also taken the egregiously wrong decision to ban the New York Post on Twitter for publishing a true account of the contents inside Hunter Biden's laptops.
Though Musk took on the liberal footsoldiers, neo-left activists and Democratic cheerleaders right from the start, it was not clear if he would go as far as to make an announcement on the reversal of Trump ban.
Earlier last week Musk had even publicly squatted down reports that Trump had encouraged him to buy Twitter. Meanwhile, Trump shrugged off excitement over his possible return to Twitter, saying he would not want to come back and that he would rather continue to promote his own social media venture, Truth Social.
President Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter days before he was to leave the White House. The ban followed the January 6 riot at the US Capitol even as the Congress convened to ratify Joe Biden's election as president.
"I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump, I think that was a mistake ... I would reverse the perma-ban. ... But my opinion, and Jack Dorsey, I want to be clear, shares this opinion, is that we should not have perma-bans," Musk said.
Jack Dorsey's U-Turn
Interestingly, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, also supported Musk's view on reversing the Trump ban. Trump's ban was taken with Dorsey in command and it was reported that he 'headed' that historic decision. However, following Musk's remarks, Dorsey said he does "agree" there shouldn't be permanent bans on Twitter users.
Though Musk has not completed the Twitter deal, and there indeed is some level of investor skepticism over the completion of the deal, Musk has not shied away from calling out the fundamental flaws of the platform, including its political bias.
"I think Twitter needs to be much more evenhanded. It currently has a strong left bias because it's based in San Francisco .. I don't think the people there necessarily intend, or at least some of them don't intend, to have a left bias. They just, from their perspective, it seems moderate, but they're just coming after it from an environment that is very far left," Musk said.
