Twitter CEO Elon Musk said Friday a decision has not yet been made on whether to restore Donald Trump’s suspended account, as he brought back three other high-profile accounts that had broken the social media platform’s rules.
Musk, who has faced staff revolts and criticism from users as he looks to overhaul the service and its free speech policies, said in a tweet that the accounts of Canadian academic Jordan Peterson, right-wing satirical news site The Babylon Bee, and comedian Kathy Griffin had been reinstated.
“Trump decision has not yet been made,” he added.
Musk has previously said no decisions on reinstating banned accounts would be made until a content moderation council has reviewed the issue.
Peterson and the Babylon Bee had their accounts suspended earlier this year — before Musk closed his deal to purchase Twitter in October — for posting anti-trans tweets that deadnamed and misgendered actor Elliot Page and assistant U.S. health secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, respectively.
Griffin was suspended shortly after Musk’s takeover for impersonating and mocking the billionaire.
Trump was permanently banned from Twitter in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by hundreds of his supporters. The former president had used the platform in the days leading up to the riot to spread false claims about the 2020 election being “stolen” from him, including allegations of widespread voter fraud.
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A tweet sent by Trump as the riot unfolded that blamed his vice-president Mike Pence for lacking the “courage” to overturn the election whipped the rioters into a frenzy and prompted chants of “Hang Mike Pence,” according to videos released by the congressional committee investigating the attack.
At the time of his suspension, Trump’s account had more than 88 million followers.
Trump’s return to the platform has become a possibility since Musk first offered to buy Twitter this spring. During a Financial Times conference in May, Musk called Trump’s ban “morally wrong and flat-out stupid” and said the move only served to amplify Trump’s supporters.
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For his part, Trump has said he would not return to Twitter even if his account is reinstated, opting to stay exclusively on his own platform, Truth Social.
But a return to Twitter could also be seen as necessary after Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign on Tuesday. Twitter did not respond to questions about whether Trump’s candidacy will impact any reinstatement decision.
Trump was also banned from Facebook and Instagram — both owned by parent company Meta — as well as Snapchat and YouTube in the wake of the Capitol attack.
Facebook has no plans to reinstate Trump’s account due to his candidacy, the company confirmed Wednesday. But the suspension is due to be reconsidered by its quasi-independent oversight board in January, two years after it was first imposed.
YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi said Wednesday that the company had no plans to lift its own suspension.
Musk’s comment about Trump and his reinstatement of the other three accounts came as he announced a new content moderation policy that he said would allow “freedom of speech” but not “freedom of reach.”
The policy, he said, would see “negative/hate tweets” get “deboosted and demonetized” but still remain on the platform. Only individual tweets will be impacted, he later added, rather than accounts.
Twitter already “downranks” offending tweets and sometimes requires their removal. The latter tactic was applied to Peterson for his tweet about Page, but the academic doubled down and said he’d “rather die” than remove the tweet — leading to his suspension.
— with files from The Associated Press
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