Elon Musk is running a poll asking Twitter users whether former President Donald Trump should be reinstated on the platform, and has generated 7,683,554 votes as of 4:00 a.m. ET on Nov. 19, with 15 hours left to vote.
At the moment, the “Yes” votes are in the majority with 53 percent. Those who don’t want to hear from Trump on Twitter are at 47 percent. Musk wrote in a following tweet, “Vos Populi, Vox Dei,” a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
In his latest tweet, Musk said “Trump poll getting ~1M votes/hour!” regarding the popular poll.
Musk has a following of nearly 117 million on the platform. When commented by a user that his polls have started to become “statistically significant” given the large number of followers and that Twitter should have an “All Users” poll where the poll would be seen by every single user, Musk replied, “When polls are about a significant question, even those who don’t follow me tend to hear about it. That said, I agree with the idea of an all-user poll. Should also be an all-user by country poll.”
Kari Lake, Arizona gubernatorial contender, replied to Musk’s Trump poll with an “eyes” emoji, while Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, said, “You kind of promised you would....”
Trump was suspended on Twitter following the Jan. 6 Capital breach incident in which he was accused of inciting violence, although the president told supporters to protest peacefully and lawfully. Trump had amassed nearly 90 million followers before the suspension.
Calls Mount for Removing the Ban
Other users were calling for the unbanning of several other prominent Twitter influencers like Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA & DNA vaccines who was suspended and censored by major outlets following his criticism of the COVID-19 vaccines; cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough who was banned for the same reason; Michael Flynn, Trump supporter and former National Security Advisor of the United States; James Lindsay, an ardent critic of marxism; news network Project Veritas; and Trump supporter and political strategist Steve Bannon.Earlier in the day, Musk said, “Kathie Griffin, Jordan Peterson & Babylon Bee have been reinstated. Trump decision has not yet been made,” to which many replied to bring back the president, along with scientists de-platformed following COVID-19 vaccine controversies.
Meanwhile, satire site The Babylon Bee was reinstated yesterday, “We’re back. Let that sink in,” said the outlet to its 1.8 million followers.
The Babylon Bee got censored for naming U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, a transgender woman, as “man of the year.”
Twitter said at the time that the account would be reinstated if the outlet removed the tweet, but CEO Seth Dillon stood firm on people’s right to free speech.
“You either have to be compelled to say what we want you to say or remain silent and censor yourself. When we’ve reached that point, that’s where I say that’s a hill worth dying on,” said Dillon in an interview with The Epoch Times.
“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. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet,” said Musk on Nov. 18, followed by, “Note, this applies just to the individual tweet, not the whole account.”
LibsofTiktok, a prominent user who exposes leftist hypocrisy on the platform, replied to Musk, “But who decides what a ‘hate tweet’ is?”
