Elon Musk Forms Council, Announces ‘No Major Content Decisions’

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks before unveiling the Model Y at Tesla's design studio in Hawthorne, Calif., on March 14, 2019. Jae C. Hong/AP Photo

Elon Musk said Friday he’s forming a council to oversee Twitter’s content moderation decisions a day after he acquired the firm for $44 billion.

The Tesla CEO said that Twitter would form the council with “widely diverse viewpoints.” He did not provide any names or a timeframe.

“No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes,” Musk wrote. His Twitter post did not say what accounts, if any, would be reinstated.

Musk has long been critical of the company’s content moderation policies, accusing the firm of exhibiting a left-wing bias in its decisions. Reports on Thursday indicated that Musk fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and other top executives, including Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s general counsel and the head of its content moderation. There has been speculation that Gadde was the individual who was ultimately responsible for former President Donald Trump’s deplatforming from Twitter.

A Twitter spokesperson told CNN in October 2021 that decisions regarding bans are made by the Twitter Trust and Safety team, which was headed by Gadded.

In May, Musk said that he could reverse Trump’s ban, saying that kicking the former president off the platform was a “morally bad decision” and “extreme.”

“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,” said Musk, according to The Associated Press.

Other than Trump, a number of other prominent right-wing figures have also been suspended in recent years, including political consultant Roger Stone, former Trump national security advisor Lt. Gen Michael Flynn, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, InfoWars host Alex Jones, former Trump White House’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe, and the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

As for Trump, he said earlier this year that he would prefer not to return to Twitter and indicated he would remain on his own platform, Truth Social. In a statement, the 45th president said Friday that he’s pleased with Musk’s purchase of Twitter and said the platform is “in sane hands” and will “no longer be run by Radical Left lunatics.”

Trump did not address whether he would return to Twitter, a social media platform that he used with significant effect. Before he was suspended, Trump had amassed nearly 90 million followers.

Twitter’s content moderation team claimed that Trump was banned for comments he made on Jan. 6, 2021, and alleged they were responsible for the breach at the U.S. Capitol. Last year, the former president filed a lawsuit against Twitter and Facebook, while refuting claims that he encouraged violence.

“Twitter must now work hard to rid itself of all of the bots and fake accounts that have hurt it so badly,” Trump also wrote Friday. “It will be much smaller, but better.”