Well, Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of Tesla, and soon-to-be owner of Twitter has shown his cards.
When and if he buys the social media giant for $44 billion, Musk will reverse its ban of former President Donald Trump.
Now, if you’re skeptical like me, you knew that was the plan all along. Give Trump the platform he used to lie about Obama’s birth certificate, to stoke racism and hate, to peddle misinformation, and to lie 24-7. Maybe if it was harmless I could understand giving Trump a platform, but Trump’s lies about the 2020 election led to an insurrection where five people died.
Still, Musk believes it’s all about free speech, no matter how deadly that speech might be.
Speaking Tuesday at an auto conference, Musk said Twitter’s ban of Trump following the Jan. 6th insurrection was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”
“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,” said Musk.
Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey agreed with Musk in a tweet, saying that “generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don’t work.”
Thankfully, Musk said his twitter purchase is not a done deal, and for the sake of the world, I hope it’s not. I don’t want to live in a world where rich guys open the floodgates to hate, and claim it’s all about free speech. I don’t want to live in a country where people can tell the kinds of outrageous lies that get people killed, and do it with no consequences.
I don’t want to live in a world where Donald Trump is on Twitter, where decency is on life support, and where hatred is always on top.
Photo: Elon Musk By. Thomas Hawk
