Former US President Donald Trump may hope to return to Twitter in time for the 2024 White House race. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is in the process of taking over Twitter, would leave Trump back to the platform. The decision to ban Trump was “morally wrong and just plain stupid,” Musk said in a video interview at a Financial Times event on Tuesday.
Trump was banned from Twitter after expressing sympathy for his supporters who stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. In previous weeks, Trump had fueled sentiment with baseless claims that an election victory over Joe Biden was stolen through fraud.
Will Trump still not come back?
Trump recently said he didn’t want to go back to Twitter, even if he could. Presence on the platform, where it already has more than 80 million followers, could be important for a possible candidacy in the 2024 presidential election. Trump used Twitter very actively to mobilize his supporters and create an atmosphere. He is trying to create his own social media platform, which is struggling with startup issues.
Musk said Trump’s Twitter ban was a mistake because a large segment of the US public did not agree with it. And that didn’t mean that the former president could no longer make himself heard.
It will be some time before it becomes clear whether Musk will actually have Twitter. The head of electric car maker Tesla has agreed with Twitter’s board of directors to a deal worth about $44 billion, but it still depends on enough shareholders willing to cede their shares to him. Twitter and Musk aim to complete the acquisition by the end of the year.