New Twitter owner Elon Musk reinstated former President Donald Trump’s account after he was banned following the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, NPR reports.
Musk polled his followers over the weekend on whether Trump should be reinstated. A slim majority voted for Trump.
"The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted, using a Latin phrase that means "the voice of the people is the voice of god."
Musk had previously vowed he would not make any "major content decisions or account reinstatements" before convening a "content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints."
Musk in May called the decision to ban Trump “morally bad” 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," he said.
Trump remains banned from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Trump snub:
Trump, who launched Truth Social after he was banned from Twitter, said he does not plan to switch back.
"Vote now with positivity, but don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere. Truth Social is special!" he wrote on Saturday.
Trump in April vowed that he would not return even if reinstated.
"I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH," Trump said at the time. "I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH."
Civil rights groups condemn:
Civil rights leaders condemned Musk’s decision to unban Trump.
“In Elon Musk’s Twittersphere, you can incite an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which led to the deaths of multiple people, and still be allowed to spew hate speech and violent conspiracies on his platform,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “Any advertiser still funding Twitter should immediately pause all advertising. If Elon Musk continues to run Twitter like this, using garbage polls that do not represent the American people and the needs of our democracy, God help us all.”
“In less than three weeks Musk has gone back on every promise he made to civil-rights leaders and advertisers,” Free Press co-CEO Jessica J. González said in a statement. “Musk either changed his mind or lied to civil-rights leaders and advertisers. Either way, Musk has proven himself not to be a man of his word.”
