Elon Musk spoke by videoconference during the Financial Times Future of the Car summit, and he was notably asked about a potential return of Donald Trump on Twitter when Musk will own it. As many people expected, the billionaire would like to see the former president return to the social network.
For Musk, the suspension of Trump’s Twitter account was not ” correct »
As a reminder, Trump was banned from Twitter on February 8, 2021, two days after hundreds of his supporters invaded the Capitol, a symbol of American democracy. According to the leaders of the platform, Trump’s tweets during this period served as an incitement to violence, so they made the decision to permanently ban his account. Facebook has also taken a similar measure, but for only two years. Since then, the former president has created his own platform, Truth Social, and assures that he will not return to Twitter.
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Since the announcement of the takeover of Twitter by Musk for 44 billion dollars, the question of Trump’s return to the social network, however, has been on everyone’s lips, and the billionaire has finally answered it:
“I think it was wrong to suspend Donald Trump’s account. I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a lot of the country and didn’t have the end result of Donald Trump no longer having a voice, he’s now going to be on Truth Social as a big part of the right in the United States, and so I think it could end up being frankly worse than having a single forum where everyone can debate. So I guess the answer is I would reverse the permanent ban obviously I don’t own Twitter yet so that’s not a thing that’s going to happen for sure because what if I don’t own Twitter? “.
Jack Dorsey supports Musk in his decision
This position on the part of Elon Musk is not surprising. Defining themselves as ” free speech absolutist “, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla also assures that the latter is “ the foundation of a functioning democracy “. He also sided with the conservatives, who often criticize social networks for their bias with the left. Thus, Musk accused Twitter of a “ strong left bias, because she is based in San Francisco “, and also claimed that ” victory would be if the rightmost 10% and the leftmost 10% were equally upset “.
Moreover, Musk claims to have spoken about Donald Trump with Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, and the latter would ultimately agree with the billionaire. Indeed, while Dorsey was asserting last year that banning Trump was the right move, he recently backtracked, tweeting that permanent suspensions of individual users “ are a failure of the company, and that they do not work “. Since Elon Musk announced his takeover of the social network, Jack Dorsey has expressed unfailing support for him.
The billionaire nevertheless wishes to recall that the acquisition of Twitter is not yet complete; as venture capital firms and some big banks have lined up to invest, Musk must provide up to $21 billion from his own cash, recalls the New York Times. In addition, a vote of Twitter shareholders has yet to take place.
Elon Musk wants to change Twitter’s moderation policy and claims to defend absolute freedom of expression. Illustration: Pixabay
Twitter will change dramatically if the takeover is finalized
If all goes as planned for Musk, there are a lot of changes that should be made to the social network. According to him, for example, Twitter’s software code must be made open source so that it can be widely consulted and people can recommend changes.
If he is against permanent account suspensions, except for bots or spam, the billionaire assures that “ if there are tweets that are false and bad, they should be deleted or made invisible, and a suspension – a temporary suspension – is appropriate, but not a permanent ban “. Many human rights organizations are concerned about the takeover of the platform by Elon Musk, and fear an upsurge in hate speech.
For his part, the richest man in the world declared that his vision of freedom of expression “ does not mean that someone has the right to say what they want “. For example, he said he was in favor of the temporary suspension of accounts ” if they say something illegal or simply destructive to the world “. He also brought up the idea that a particular tweet could be “ rendered invisible or have very limited traction “.
He also assured Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, that he would do everything to ” make twitter better and that the platform would respect the Digital Services Act, a European text that will soon come into force to regulate the technological giants.