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By Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The billionaire founder of Tesla Inc., Elon Musk, has revealed that if he successfully acquires Twitter, he will reverse the microblogging site’s permanent ban of former United States President, Donald Trump.
The Tesla CEO disclosed this on Tuesday at the Financial Times’ ‘Future of the Car’ conference.
Musk recently signed a $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter, but the deal is yet to be finalised.
Speaking virtually at the conference, he said it was a “mistake” for the microblogging platform to permanently ban the former president.
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts… I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump.
“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.
“I would reverse the permanent ban. I don’t own Twitter yet. So this is not like a thing that will definitely happen because what if I don’t own Twitter?” he said.
Twitter permanently suspended Trump from its platform in January 2021, following the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
The company said it took the decision “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
At the time, Trump had more than 80 million followers on the platform.
Last month, Trump said he wouldn’t return to Twitter even if his account is reinstated but would remain on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
