Two days after he said he would lift a measure that banned former U.S. President Donald Trump from using Twitter, businessman Elon Musk tried to signal that he might not be a Republican supporter if he decides to run for executive office again in 2024. year.
The speech of the billionaire who bought the platform last month for $44 billion (225 billion reais at the current price), it is not surprising that it appeared in tweets published on Thursday night (12). In messages, he confirmed that he advocates the return of the politician on the social network.
“While I believe a less polarized candidate is better chosen in 2024, I still believe that Trump should restore his Twitter account,” Musk wrote. He then tweeted to criticize the man who defeated a Republican in an election two years ago. “Mistake [Joe] Biden in that he thinks he was elected to transform the country, when in reality everyone just wanted less drama.”
Last Tuesday (10) the richest man in the world said at an event Newspaper “Financial Times” who considers the measure to bar the former Republican president from the podium, adopted as a result of comments made about the January 6, 2021 Capitol invasion, a mistake.
“It was a morally bad decision and eminently stupid. It alienated much of the country and ultimately did not result in Donald Trump losing his voice.”
Commenting on the announcement, the White House said Twitter should decide whether a Republican should ban the account and emphasized the importance of social media protecting freedom of expression and not becoming platforms for disinformation.
On the same day that the platform accepted Musk’s billion dollar offer, Trump even said he was not interested in restoring his profile. In an interview with Fox News, the politician said that he was officially integrating his own social network, Truth Social. “I’m not going to Twitter, I’m staying in Truth. But I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’s going to improve and he’s a good person.”
The billionaire defines himself as a free speech advocate, and so while he hasn’t objectively specified his plans for the social network, it’s speculated that he may be cutting down on the levels of moderation imposed by the platform in recent years, in part to curb the spread of misinformation and hate speech.
Musk already assumed he voted for Barack Obama, but this year he said the Democratic Party was “taken over by extremists.” In 2020, he even endorsed the presidential candidacy of Andrew Yang, who dropped out before the Democrats nominated Biden and then did not publicly announce the vote.
Twitter permanently banned Trump’s account in early 2021, just days after crowds rose up over him storming the US Capitol during a Joe Biden victory.
The company explained at the time that it had decided to suspend the 88 million followers profile after “detailed analysis of recent messages from the account.” [de Trump] and context around them. Twitter Safety, which takes care of the security of the platform, justified the ban, saying that the structure of the social network exists to allow users to directly listen to world leaders, but that “these accounts are not above the rules.” “They can’t use Twitter to incite violence.”
The suspension was part of a movement by several social networks that also temporarily or not blocked the accounts of the former president. Since the attack on Capitol Hill, companies have come under intense pressure due to their role in spreading fake news and inciting hatred.
