Billionaire Elon Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account after users of that social media platform voted by a slim majority to lift the ban on the former US president.
Trump’s account was suspended in 2021 after the January 6 Capitol riots, for violating Twitter guidelines and risking “further incitement to violence.”
After the attack, Trump was banned from Facebook and Instagram. He also suspended his ability to post videos to his YouTube channel.
Since then the former president has been using it on his own, much smaller social media site, Truth Social, which he launched after being blocked from Twitter.
The development follows Musk’s purchase of Twitter last month, an acquisition that has fueled widespread concern that the new owner will allow purveyors of lies and misinformation to flourish on the site.
Musk has frequently said that Twitter has become “too restrictive” in terms of free speech, and his efforts to revamp the site have been chaotic. He has laid off many of the company’s 7,500 full-time workers and an unknown number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial tasks.
His demand that the remaining employees commit to “extremely hard” work prompted a wave of resignations, including hundreds of engineers at software.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a video of the January 6 insurrection. The last time Trump was on Twitter, he said, “it was used to incite an insurrection, multiple people were killed, the Vice President of the United States was nearly killed, and hundreds were injured.”
