Elon Musk says he would reverse Twitter’s Trump ban

On May 10, 2022

Musk’s remarks at Financial Times’ Future of the Car conference mark his first public acknowledgment of what had been widely expected since the billionaire announced plans to buy the social media giant for $44 billion.

Musk has previously said he thinks Twitter should be more “reluctant to delete things” and “very cautious with permanent bans.” On Tuesday, he called Twitter’s decision to ban Trump in January 2021 a “mistake.”

“I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump, I think that was a mistake,” Musk said. “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.”

Dorsey, Twitter’s cofounder and former CEO, tweeted Tuesday following Musk’s remarks that he does “agree” there shouldn’t be permanent bans on Twitter users. “There are exceptions … but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don’t work,” he said.

Twitter declined to comment on Musk’s remarks.

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Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter following the January 6 Capitol Riot for violating the platform’s rules against violence incitement, a decision the company has said was headed by Dorsey. Other social platforms followed in banning or suspending Trump’s account.

Trump, for his part, has said he would not return to Twitter even if his account were restored, instead promoting his own social media venture, Truth Social, which has so far appeared to struggle to get off the ground.

“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,” Musk said at the event on Tuesday.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO acknowledged that his acquisition of Twitter, and Trump’s return, are not yet a done deal. “I will say that I don’t own Twitter yet, so this is not a thing that will definitely happen, because what if I don’t own Twitter?” he said.

There remain some questions about whether Musk will indeed go through with the deal, or whether the decline in Tesla (TSLA) shares over the past month could negatively impact his ability to finance the deal. Twitter (TWTR) stock was trading around $47.70 on Tuesday afternoon, well below Musk’s offer price of $54.20 per share, suggesting some investor skepticism about the likelihood that the deal gets completed.

That hasn’t stopped Musk from continuing to expound on his plans for the platform in recent weeks. Musk has said his goal is to bolster free speech on the platform and to make it clearer to users when the platform takes actions that impact what people see on Twitter.

On Tuesday, he reiterated his desire to rid Twitter of bots promoting spam or scams, and his plan to make Twitter’s algorithm publicly available for anyone to view and comment on.

“I would literally put the Twitter algorithm on GitHub and say like, ‘Hey, anyone want to suggest changes to this? Please go ahead,'” Musk said, adding that he sees such a move as a way to “build transparency and trust.”

He…