Patrick Pleul/AP
- Conservatives have asked Elon Musk to restore former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
- Musk bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter on Monday, making him the company’s largest shareholder.
- The Tesla CEO had earlier questioned whether Twitter was adhering to the principles of free speech.
Conservative figures are urging Elon Musk to allow former President Donald Trump back on Twitter, following Monday’s announcement that the Tesla CEO had bought a 9.2% stake in the social media giant.
In the days prior to the announcement, Musk had tweeted several times questioning the platform’s free speech rules and musing on whether a new social media platform is needed.
On March 25, he also tweeted an informal poll asking his followers if Twitter had adhered to the principle that free speech is essential to a “functioning democracy.” Of the roughly two million respondents to the poll, 70.4% voted no.
With Musk becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder, requests to reinstate Trump’s account — which was permanently suspended on January 9, 2021 — started to surface on Monday evening.
“Great job Elon Musk! Now reinstate President Trump!” tweeted conservative author Brigitte Gabriel.
“Now that @ElonMusk is Twitter’s largest shareholder, it’s time to lift the political censorship. Oh… and BRING BACK TRUMP!” wrote Colorado GOP congresswoman Lauren Boebert.
Errol Webber, a Republican America First candidate running for a California House seat, said that the ban reversal should apply to anyone who had been taken off Twitter before.
—Errol Webber (@ErrolWebber) April 4, 2022
“Will the new majority shareholder return freedom of speech to Twitter?” tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who said the act would “require courage” because “the regime is heavily investing in a certain industry and threats will undoubtedly come.”
“Yet the freedom of speech restored will enable us all to defeat them,” the congresswoman added.
Trump’s Twitter account was permanently suspended due to the company’s concerns over “the risk of further incitement of violence” in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riots.
The former president has since created his own social media platform, Truth Social, which he has touted to be an alternative to mainstream social media sites. The platform suffered technical difficulties at launch but has begun to accumulate the same amount of traffic as its competitor, conservative social media site Gettr.com.
While Musk had not directly addressed the requests as of Monday evening, the Tesla CEO referenced his new Twitter shares again by polling users on whether they wanted a button on the platform to edit their tweets and comments.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022
It is not immediately clear how much control Musk seeks to exercise over the social media platform since the billionaire owns a “passive” stake in Twitter — which usually indicates that the investor doesn’t intend to take an active role in running the company.
However, Musk can still reconsider his position and file to take a more active stance in the company, as Bloomberg reported.
Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
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