While some Republicans took to publicly cheering Elon Musk’s $44bn purchase of Twitter as a major victory for free speech, there were some who viewed it with trepidation, according to reports.
For a series of top GOP insiders told Politico Playbook of their grave concerns about the new Musk-led Twitter becoming a haven to welcome back previously banned accounts, namely Donald Trump.
“If I’m a Democrat, I’d pray that Elon Musk puts Trump right back on Twitter,” an anonymous House GOP leadership aide told Politico, who asked to remain unidentified in order to speak freely.
“I don’t think it costs Republicans the House, but it certainly will elevate Trump’s opinions - and is going to put Republican candidates and members back having to answer for that.”
Mr Musk, an avowed champion of free speech, has indicated in public statements since the deal with Twitter was announced that he would like to return the social media platform to its former, less moderated, glory.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Mr Musk said in the company statement.
“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
While the deal between the San Francisco-based app and Mr Musk has been percolating in the public eye in recent weeks, allies of the former US president, who was banned from the platform in the aftermath of the 6 January Capitol Riot, have been advocating for his account to be reinstated.
Earlier in April, after it was announced that the Tesla titan had become the largest shareholder of the social media company, conservatives were quick to jump on the bandwagon that the free speech champion would soon be restoring previously shuttered accounts, namely Mr Trump’s.
“Now that @ElonMusk is Twitter’s largest shareholder, it’s time to lift the political censorship,” Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert tweeted. “Oh… and bring back Trump!”
That sentiment, however, does not seem to be shared with everyone in the GOP, even the Mr Trump himself.
Speaking to Fox News on Monday, the former US president told the network that he has no intention of returning to Musk’s Twitter, emphasising that he plans to keep “TRUTHing” on his own social media platform, Truth Social, next week.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH," Mr Trump told Fox News. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH.”
Despite his very enthusiastic refusal to consider rejoining the app, if an offer was extended, GOP insiders told Politico that they doubt the sincerity in the former president’s commitment, noting that he’d be hard pressed to resist the lure of seeing his 88 million followers like, retweet and comment on his daily musings.
“The lure of Twitter … may prove as irresistible for Trump as it is a potential return of a migraine headache for Republicans, who have not missed the tweets and barrage of questions from the Trump-generated outrage du jour,” Doug Heye, a GOP political strategist, told Politico.
Another Republican working on GOP campaigns told the outlet that while the former president “could do a lot of good” with his platform, which he described as “the world’s biggest microphone on Twitter”, there is also a lot of room to do bad.
“He could do a lot of good with it - or bad. It will make every GOP politician’s life more difficult,” the GOP campaigner told Politico.
Other far-right accounts that saw their blue-check verified statuses banned from the social media platform because of their activity on the platform spreading disinformation and promoting conspiracies have also seen Mr Musk’s purchase as an opportunity to have their names rectified.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, who saw her personal account banned following repeated violations of Twitter’s policies against resharing political falsehoods, wrote on Monday that she was looking forward to having her account restored.
“Prepare for the blue check mark full scale meltdown after @elonmusk seals the deal and I should get my personal Twitter account restored,” she wrote.
Mr Musk, who has said he’ll pay $54.20 cash per share for the social media app, has provided no direct assurances since the deal was announced on Monday that banned accounts such as the former president’s and Ms Greene’s would be returned.
But in the weeks leading up to his initial purchase of the company’s shares at the beginning of April, he had publicly slammed the company for not adhering to the principles of free speech.
“Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” Mr Musk wrote last month, just days before he made his move for the company by announcing his 9 per cent stake.
The company has since confirmed that Mr Musk, the world’s richest person on the planet at an estimated worth of $259bn, had secured $25.5bn in debt and loan financing, and was providing $21bn of equity commitment for the purchase.
