The billionaire Elon Musk is speaking out this week to say that he plans to reverse Twitter’s ban of former President Donald Trump, should his deal to buy the social media platform go through.

“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,” Musk said while appearing at FT Live’s Future of the Car conference. “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.”

Go Ad-Free, Get Exclusive Shows and Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

“I would reverse the permanent ban,” he added. “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?”

However, this comes one month after Trump said that he would not return to Twitter if he was ever un-banned.

“No, I won’t be going back on Twitter,” he told CNBC at the time. “I will be on Truth Social within the week. It’s on schedule. We have a lot of people signed up. I like Elon Musk. I like him a lot. He’s an excellent individual. We did a lot for Twitter when I was in the White House. I was disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter. I won’t be going back on Twitter.”

While Musk acknowledged today that he’s heard that Trump has said he won’t return to Twitter, sources close to the president have said that he actually would come back if the ban was ever reversed.

Go Ad-Free, Get Exclusive Shows and Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is expected to become interim CEO of Twitter once his takeover of the platform is complete. Twitter banned Trump last year after the Capitol riot that occurred in January of 2021 “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Prior to that, Trump was a regular user of Twitter who had over 80 million followers on the platform.

Officials in Joe Biden’s administration have expressed concerns that Musk would let Trump and other Republicans who have been banned by Twitter back on the platform. Thankfully, Musk seems to be making it clear that he has no intention of being bullied by the left, and that he wants everyone to have a voice whether they are Republican or Democrat.

“I think this could end up being frankly worse than having a single forum where everyone could debate,” Musk said today, according to NBC News. He was referring to the idea that conservatives are being censored and are not free to express their views as liberals do.

This piece was written by James Sampson on May 10, 2022. It originally appeared in RobManess.com and is used by permission.

The opinions expressed by contributors and/or content partners are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of DrewBerquist.com. Contact us for guidelines on submitting your own commentary.