Trump Sounds Happy About Musk’s Twitter Takeover – By Arden Dier (Newser) / Oct 28, 2022
Former president praises ‘sane hands,’ but doesn’t say whether he would return if allowed
(NEWSER) – Twitter is now officially in the hands of Elon Musk, who has said former President Trump’s ban from the “left-biased” platform over his comments praising Jan. 6 rioters was a “mistake.” The big question now is whether Trump will return to Twitter, where he counted nearly 90 million followers, if Musk reverses the ban. Musk is expected to do so. In May, he vowed to lift all of Twitter’s lifetime bans, per Euro News. On Thursday, Musk reportedly fired the executive thought to be responsible for bans—Vijaya Gadde, head of legal and policy—along with Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal.
Some 27 human rights groups are calling for an advertising boycott of the platform if Twitter takes a softer approach to moderation, arguing such a move would pose “a direct threat to public safety,” per the Guardian. And various companies have agreed, per the Wall Street Journal. But in a Thursday letter, Musk—a self-described “free speech absolutist”—assured advertisers that Twitter, which took 89% of its revenue from advertising in 2021, “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” He added he was buying the company to “have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.” Musk didn’t reference Trump, but Trump referenced him in a post on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
“I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country,” he wrote Friday, per the Hill. He didn’t say whether he’d return to Twitter if allowed. But after Musk’s takeover of Twitter was announced in the spring, he told media outlets that he would not. Offering his reasoning in May, he told CNBC that he was “disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter,” per Forbes. On Friday, he wrote that he preferred Truth Social while claiming that it had “bigger numbers than all other platforms” last week. (He counts just 4.37 million followers there.) He added, “Twitter must now work hard to rid itself of all of the bots and fake accounts that have hurt it so badly. It will be much smaller, but better.”
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