Musk calls Twitter's Trump ban 'morally bad,' says he would reverse

WASHINGTON

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Tuesday that he would reverse former President Donald Trump's ban from Twitter, calling the decision "morally bad," as well as "foolish in the extreme."

Musk, whose $44 billion bid to acquire the social media company was accepted by Twitter in late April, said he has spoken to company founder Jack Dorsey and they agree "permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam scam accounts, where there's just no legitimacy to be accountable."

"I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. 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 during an interview with the Financial Times newspaper.

Musk acknowledged that he does not yet own Twitter, but said he and Dorsey agree "that we should not have" permanent bans.

"That doesn't mean that somebody gets to say whatever they want to say if they say something that is illegal or otherwise destructive to the world then that there should be a passive timeout, a temporary suspension, or that particular tweet should be made invisible or have very limited traction," he said.