Shortly after Elon Musk became the owner of 9.2% of Twitter shares, many netizens asked the SpaceX CEO for help so that Donald Trump was allowed to play Twitter again. So, can Musk grant that request?
As is known, Twitter has permanently banned former US President Donald Trump since early 2021, following the January 6, 2021 rioting incident at the US Capitol Building ahead of the announcement of the results of the 2020 US Presidential Election.
Requests to reinstate Trump's Twitter account have come not only from his netizen supporters, but also some politicians from the Republican Party. Everyone hopes the free-speech Musk can bring Trump back to his favorite social media.
"Elon Musk has made it clear he is against big tech censorship, and that's something all freedom-loving Americans support," said Senator Marsha Blackburn, as quoted by The Washington Post.
"BRING BACK TRUMP!" said congressman Lauren Boebert.
Musk does support free speech on social media. He has also criticized Twitter and other social media companies for silencing the voices of politicians from certain political sects.
"A lot of people will be very displeased with West Coast high tech as the de facto enforcer of free speech," Musk said in a tweet on January 11, 2021.
Even though Musk is now Twitter's biggest shareholder, he doesn't seem to have the power to let Trump use Twitter anymore. The company with the bird logo says it has no plans to reverse Trump's ban.
"Our policy decisions are not determined by our board of directors or shareholders, and we have no plans to reverse any policy decisions," a Twitter spokesperson said.
Twitter has previously said board members like Musk only have an advisory role and provide feedback. They emphasized that members of the board of directors are not involved in making decisions about Twitter policies, and that all day-to-day decisions are taken by Twitter's management and employees.
It also doesn't seem like Musk has much interest in bringing back Trump or other far-right figures that Twitter has blocked. Other than his January 2021 tweet, he has never tweeted about Trump's ban again.
In fact, according to Musk right now Twitter's biggest problem has nothing to do with Trump. As a person whose name is often used by fraudsters, Musk said Twitter's most annoying problem was crypto bots that spread a lot of spam.