The Fate Of Donald Trump's Twitter Presence Depends On Elon Musk: 'I Would Reverse The Permanent Ban'

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk is in ongoing talks to buy Twitter Inc TWTR, so he can't reveal specifics.

That didn't stop him from talking about his vision for the social media platform Tuesday during an interview on FT Live's "Future of the Car."

"I think Twitter needs to be much more even-handed. It currently has a strong left bias because it's based in San Francisco," Musk said.

The Tesla CEO noted that he doesn't think the people at Twitter are aware of such, rather they view themselves as moderate.

"This fails to build trust in the rest of the United States and also, perhaps in other parts of the world," he said. 

This view is aligned with recent comments Musk made on Twitter, suggesting that the platform should be "politically neutral."

For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2022

Musk On Bans: When it comes to permanent Twitter bans, Musk noted that he and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey share the same opinion. 

"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 the account at all," Musk said. 

Moreover, if Musk's Twitter bid is accepted, he plans to reinstate former President Donald Trump's Twitter account. 

"I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump," he said. "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."

See Also: Why Hindenburg Research Is Shorting Twitter: 'Musk Holds All The Cards'

After the U.S. Capitol was raided by the former president's supporters at the beginning of 2021, Twitter permanently banned Trump from the social media platform — a decision Musk would overturn. 

“I would reverse the permanent ban,” Musk said. "I don’t own Twitter yet. So this is not like a thing that will definitely happen." 

Some members of the Biden administration have expressed concerns that Musk would allow Trump to reemerge on the platform if his bid is accepted. We won't know the fate of Trump's social media presence for at least a couple of months. 

"The best case scenario is that this would be, I think, perhaps done in two or three months," Musk said.

Although, even if the Musk welcomes Trump back to Twitter, the former president has already indicated that he will not be returning to the platform.

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Photos: Steve Jurvetson and Gage Skidmore from Flickr.