Elon Musk said he would reverse the Twitter ban of former President Donald Trump, calling it “not correct” and a “morally bad decision,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
“I do think that 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,” he said, per the report.
In Musk’s opinion, permanent bans undermine trust in the social media platform. He said tweets that are “wrong and bad” should be met with deletion or making them invisible, rather than a permanent ban.
All of this comes as Musk has agreed as of late April to buy Twitter for $44 billion. The transaction isn’t completed yet. There still are several steps, including a Twitter shareholder vote.
Musk’s focus, according to him, will be making Twitter more true to free speech principles. His position is that Twitter has a “politically left-leaning bias” and needs to be more even-handed.
He said banning Trump would eventually “amplify” his voice among those who follow him or have similar views.
Trump, meanwhile, doesn’t have any plans to return to Twitter. Instead, he started his own social media venture, Truth Social.
Trump was banned because of tweets he made leading up to the Jan. 6 storming of the capital, posting several things that Twitter executives found to be under the category of inciting violence.
See also: Musk’s Pitch to Twitter Investors: Quintuple Revenue, Cut Reliance on Ads, Grow Payments
PYMNTS wrote that Musk has plans to “quintuple” revenue for the company, hitting $26.4 billion by 2028, up from $5 billion in 2021.
He said he wants to cut down on advertising until that is under 50% of revenue, instead of 90% like it was in 2020.
And by 2023 he says he plans for Twitter to earn $15 million from a payments business, which would grow to over $1 billion by 2028.
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