Elon Musk has announced that there is still “no decision” on reinstating Donald Trump’s Twitter account, but the billionaire says he has allowed Kathy Griffin and Jordan Peterson back on the platform.
The former president has been banned from Twitter since his supporters launched a violent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 202, and was forced to launch his own Truth Social website.
Before buying Twitter for $44bn last month, Mr Musk said that banning Mr Trump had been a mistake and that he wanted to reinvigorate the platform as a place for free speech.
“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter,” Mr Musk tweeted on Friday. “You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.
“Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson & Babylon Bee have been reinstated. Trump decision has not yet been made.”
Mr Trump, who was impeached twice during his one term in the White House, announced earlier this week that he was running to be the Republican nominee for president for the third time in 2024.
Ms Griffin, a comedian, was suspended from Twitter earlier this month for impersonating Mr Musk’s account to highlight the flaws in his $8 per month verification system, which has now been paused.
Mr Musk mocked Ms Griffin, joking that “she was suspended for impersonating a comedian.”
Mr Peterson was suspended from Twitter in June after a post about transgender actor Elliot Page broke the company’s rules “against hateful conduct.”
“Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician,” tweeted Mr Peterson, an anti-trans Canadian clinical psychologist.
The move came as Mr Musk was forced to temporarily close Twitter offices until Monday as hundreds of workers resigned rather than agree to his new “extremely hardcore” work culture.
Following the 5pm ET deadline, hundreds of Twitter employees reportedly signalled on the company’s Slack system that they were leaving, and Mr Musk’s response was reportedly to close offices until 21 November.
Mr Musk took to Twitter and joked at the seemingly difficult position he now found himself in.
“How do you make a small fortune in social media? Start out with a large one,” he tweeted on Thursday evening.
