More than 15 million votes were cast for a Twitter poll posted by the company’s new CEO, Elon Musk Friday.
The question? Whether he should reinstate former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter account. The answer? Final results Saturday evening showed that around 52% said yes. So, Musk did.
“Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk said in a thread stemming from the poll, a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Trump’s account was permanently suspended shortly after the deadly Capitol riot last January.
“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action,” said a message from Twitter about the former president’s suspension. It cited tweets in violation of company policy.
Following the riot, Trump was also suspended from Facebook and went on to develop his own social media platform, Truth Social.
Musk, who is also the CEO of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and space exploration company SpaceX, has said that his goal with Twitter is to “become by far the most accurate source of information about the world.”
So far, his changes to the company since acquiring it in late October – including nearly immediately firing 50% of Twitter’s staff and offering to sell blue “verification” check marks for $8 – have been controversial. Many of the remaining employees quit in recent days.
As part of a “commitment to free speech” on the platform, Musk also announced this week that he would reinstate the accounts of comedian Kathy Griffin, psychologist Jordan Peterson and the Babylon Bee.
According to a Saturday report from Bloomberg, Trump said he would prefer to stick to Truth Social because he sees “a lot of problems at Twitter.”
Down the Audacy app and follow 97.1 FM Talk.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | TikTok
Related
Related
