Ban then President Donald from Twitter trump after the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021 was a “major mistake” that needed to be corrected, the chief executive said on Friday Elon Moss. , although he also said incitement to violence would still be banned on Twitter.
“I’m fine with Trump not tweeting. The important thing is that Twitter corrects a serious mistake by banning his account, even if it didn’t violate the law or terms of service,” Musk said in a tweet. “Removing a sitting president’s platform has undermined public trust in Twitter for half of America.”
Last week, Musk announced the reactivation of Trump’s account after a slim majority voted in a Twitter poll to reinstate Trump, but Trump said he had no interest in returning to Twitter. He added that he would stick with his social networking site Truth Social, the app developed by Trump Media & Technology Group.
The Republican Trump, who announced 10 days ago that he would run again for the 2024 elections, was expelled on January 8, 2021 from Twitter by its previous owners.
At the time, Twitter said it had suspended it permanently due to the risk of further incitement to violence following the Capitol takeover. The results of the November 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden had been certified by lawmakers when the Capitol came under attack after weeks of false claims by Trump that he had won.
Trump has repeatedly used Twitter and other sites to falsely claim widespread voter fraud and had urged his supporters to march on Capitol Hill in Washington to protest.
The attack is being investigated by US prosecutors and a congressional committee.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday about Musk’s statement that Trump did not violate any Twitter terms of service when his account was suspended.
On Friday, Musk tweeted that inciting violence or inciting violence on Twitter would result in a suspension, after saying Thursday that Twitter would provide a “general amnesty” to suspended accounts that hadn’t broken the law or deal with spam.
In response to a tweet, Musk said it was “very concerning” that Twitter hadn’t taken previous action to remove some accounts linked to the far-left Antifa movement. In response to another tweet asking whether Musk considered the statement “trans people deserve to die” worthy of a suspension from the platform, the billionaire said, “Absolutely.”
Change and chaos marked Musk’s first few weeks as Twitter owner. He fired top managers and it was announced that senior officials in charge of security and privacy had resigned.
