LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump\u2019s account on Twitter on Saturday, reversing a ban that has kept the former president off the social media site since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden\u2019s election victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Musk made the announcement in the evening after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d on whether Trump\u2019s account should be restored. The \u201cyes\u201d vote won, with 51.8%. Previously, Musk had said Twitter would establish new procedures and a \u201ccontent moderation council\u201d before making decisions to restore suspended accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,\u201d Musk tweeted, using a Latin phrase meaning \u201cthe voice of the people, the voice of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortly afterward Trump\u2019s account, which had earlier appeared as suspended, reappeared on the platform complete with his former tweets, more than 59,000 of them. His followers were gone, at least initially, but he quickly began regaining them. There were no new tweets from the account as of late Saturday, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Musk restored the account less than a month after the\u00a0Tesla CEO took control of Twitter\u00a0and four days after Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not clear whether Trump would actually return to Twitter. An irrepressible tweeter before he was banned, Trump has said in the past that he would not rejoin even if his account was reinstated. He has been relying on his own, much smaller social media site, Truth Social, which he launched after being blocked from Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And on Saturday, during a video speech to a Republican Jewish group meeting in Las Vegas, Trump said that he was aware of Musk\u2019s poll but that he saw \u201ca lot of problems at Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hear we\u2019re getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don\u2019t see it because I don\u2019t see any reason for it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt may make it, it may not make it,\u201d he added, apparently referring to Twitter\u2019s recent internal upheavals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prospect of restoring Trump\u2019s presence to the platform follows Musk\u2019s purchase last month of Twitter \u2014 an acquisition that has fanned widespread concern that the billionaire owner will allow purveyors of lies and misinformation to flourish on the site. Musk has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive of freewheeling speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His efforts to reshape the site have been both swift and chaotic. Musk has fired many of the company\u2019s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors who are responsible for content moderation and other crucial responsibilities. His demand that remaining employees pledge to \u201cextremely hardcore\u201d work triggered a wave of resignations, including hundreds of software engineers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Users have reported seeing increased spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages, among other glitches, in the aftermath of the mass layoffs and worker exodus. Some programmers who were fired or resigned this week warned that Twitter\u00a0may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Musk\u2019s\u00a0online survey, posted on his own Twitter account, drew more than 15 million votes in the 24 hours in which it ran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Musk conceded that the results were hardly scientific. \u201cBot & troll armies might be running out of steam soon,\u201d he tweeted Saturday morning. \u201cSome interesting lessons to clean up future polls.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not the first time he\u2019s used Twitter polling to make business decisions. Last year he\u00a0sold millions of shares of his Tesla stock\u00a0after asking his followers whether he should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York responded to Musk\u2019s poll on Trump by tweeting video of the Jan. 6 insurrection. She tweeted Friday that when Trump was last on Twitter, it \u201cwas used to incite an insurrection, multiple people died, the Vice President of the United States was nearly assassinated, and hundreds were injured but I guess that\u2019s not enough for you to answer the question. Twitter poll it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump lost his access to Twitter two days after his supporters stormed the Capitol, soon after the former president had exhorted them to \u201cfight like hell.\u201d Twitter dropped his account after Trump wrote a pair of tweets that the company said cast further doubts on the legitimacy of the presidential election and raised risks for the Biden presidential inauguration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the Jan. 6 attack, Trump was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Meta Platforms, and Snapchat. His ability to post videos to his YouTube channel was also suspended. Facebook is set to reconsider Trump\u2019s suspension in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout his tenure as president, Trump\u2019s use of social media posed a significant challenge to major social media platforms that sought to balance the public\u2019s interest in hearing from public officials with worries about misinformation, bigotry, harassment and incitement of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in a speech at an auto conference in May, Musk asserted that Twitter\u2019s ban of Trump was a \u201cmorally bad decision\u201d and \u201cfoolish in the extreme.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this month, Musk, who completed the $44 billion takeover of Twitter in late October, declared that the company wouldn\u2019t let anyone who had been kicked off the site return until Twitter had established procedures on how to do so, including forming a \u201ccontent moderation council.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday, Musk tweeted that the suspended Twitter accounts for the comedian Kathy Griffin, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and the conservative Christian news satire website Babylon Bee had been reinstated. He added that a decision on Trump had not yet been made. He also responded \u201cno\u201d when someone on Twitter asked him to reinstate the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones\u2019 account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a tweet Friday, the Tesla CEO described the company\u2019s new content policy as \u201cfreedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He explained that a tweet deemed to be \u201cnegative\u201d or to include \u201chate\u201d would be allowed on the site but would be visible only to users who specifically searched for it. Such tweets also would be \u201cdemonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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