Tesla CEO Elon Musk has weighed in on his thoughts about the 2024 Presidential election, stating that while he firmly believes former President Donald Trump should have his Twitter account reinstated, a “less divisive candidate” would be a better option.
The businessman also took aim at President Joe Biden,
writing on Twitter on May 13 that the Democrat’s mistake is that “he thinks he was elected to transform the country,” but that “actually everyone just wanted less drama.”
Musk previously told a
Financial Times conference on Tuesday that Twitter’s decision to ban Trump was “morally bad” and said he would reverse the platform’s decision.
“I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk told the conference. “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,” he added.
Trump, however, has stated that he has no plans to return to Twitter as he concentrated on building his own Truth Social platform, which is set to launch on a web browser at the end of May, Chief Executive Devin Nunes
said earlier this month.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump told
Fox News last month. “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.”
Musk told his Twitter followers on May 13 that while he believes a “less divisive candidate would be better in 2024,” however, the businessman still thinks the former president’s account on the platform should be restored.
He also joked that he would also prefer a candidate that is “also younger than 8,000 years old.”
Trump was permanently banned from the social networking site in January 2021, with the tech giant citing his alleged violation of the company’s “Glorification of Violence” policy following the breach of the U.S. Capitol. Facebook and YouTube followed through with similar bans.
It was announced last month that Musk would purchase Twitter for $44 billion, promoting conservatives to call for him to reinstate Trump’s account.
Monica Crowley, former assistant secretary of the Treasury under Trump,
said in a tweet, “Now that Elon Musk is Twitter’s largest shareholder, he should demand the end of political censorship, company-wide reform, and the reinstatement of President Trump.”
Errol Webber, a Republican congressional candidate from California,
wrote on Twitter that it is “time to get this platform back to its former glory.”
“Step one—bring back President Trump! Step two—give everyone who has been banned a second chance. Step three—end all forms of political and other censorship,” he continued.
It has been reported that Trump is considering another run for the presidency in 2024 after losing his reelection bid in 2020. A recent Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll
survey showed Trump leading both Biden and Vice President Harris in a hypothetical 2024 race.
