Would Elon Musk allow Donald Trump back on Twitter?

Trump was exiled from Facebook and Twitter after January 6 riot

Elon Musk has once again revived his bid to buy Twitter, a move that has people talking about the repercussions of a right-leaning billionaire taking over one of the world’s most widely-used social media platforms.

Mr Musk began the campaign to purchase Twitter earlier this year but soon balked over claims that the company was refusing to release information about bots on the platform. He now heads into the latest round of negotiations humbled and back to his original offer in an attempt to avoid a lawsuit. Earlier this month, lawyers for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO claimed Twitter had denied his renewed bid. The deal is expected to close on Friday 28 October.

One big question looms: What would a Musk takeover of Twitter mean for Donald Trump?

The former president remains one of the toughest headaches for managers of social media platforms to date. Sequestered away at Mar-a-Lago surrounded by only his closest supporters, Mr Trump has done nothing to reform his conduct following bans from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in early 2021 — a consequence of his false claims about the 2020 election fomenting a deadly riot at the US Capitol that is blamed for the deaths of several police officers and resulted in charges of seditious conspiracy for some of Mr Trump’s hardline supporters.

Indeed, Mr Trump if anything has escalated his misconduct since leaving office. What was once a whispered-about potentiality reported by The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman — that Mr Trump would demand to be reinstated as president after leaving the White House — is now a very real situation, as the ex-president has done so multiple times within the past two months on his Truth Social platform. What Facebook attempted to do by temporarily suspending Mr Trump for several years, with the intent of revisiting the situation before 2024, seems to have backfired as the ex-president seems to be daring the site’s officials to keep him off.

Twitter’s suspension of Mr Trump’s “@realDonaldTrump” account was not even supposed to be temporary. The company announced on 8 January 2021 the “permanent suspension” of the account and directly cited “risk of further incitement of violence” from Mr Trump’s words.

Let’s take a look at a few possibilities for where we go from here, assuming that Mr Musk does not back out (again) from his effort to buy Twitter:

Option 1: Elon Musk allows Donald Trump to come back

This appears to be the most likely option, given that Mr Musk pretty roundly denounced the original decision to ban Mr Trump when it occurred.

He called the move a “mistake” earlier this year at a financial conference, while not directly saying whether he’d reverse it should he take over the company.

"I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump," said Mr Musk in May. "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.”

Should Mr Musk go through with a plan to reverse the ban, it would open the door to Mr Trump returning to Twitter ahead of 2024. That would undoubtedly be a boon for the former president but it would be unlikely to have a significant effect on the election; news of the move, however, could aid in Mr Trump’s work to minimalise the seriousness of January 6 and his campaign to overturn the 2020 election.

That positive headline might be the best thing the former president could hope for, given that he has expressed himself that he does not plan to return to Twitter if the ban is lifted. New content policies spearheaded by Mr Musk could make him rethink that decision, however.

Option 2: He doesn’t

Mr Musk is famously as indecisive as Mr Trump when it comes to following through on public promises, and it’s still possible that he doesn’t even go through with the effort to buy Twitter at all, instead entering a long legal battle or coming to some sort of settlement.

It’s also possible that Mr Trump’s ongoing use of Truth Social and public comments at rallies will cause Mr Musk to reconsider, especially if news coverage turns against him and the reclusive CEO faces any real questions from a journalist (for the first time) about the actual real-life consequences of the speech on Twitter’s platform. Some of those real-life consequences reared their ugly heads over the summer when an FBI office in Ohio was attacked by a gun-wielding man days after the agency raided Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and resort for presidential records, including classified documents.

Should Mr Musk refuse to reinstate his account, Mr Trump would likely cry persecution and use the CEO’s decision as ammunition in his ongoing effort to claim that the avalanche of lawsuits, criminal investigations and other consequences stemming from Jan 6, his four years in the White House and dozens in private business are all part of a concerted effort by Democrats to punish him and keep him from office.

All in all, it’s clear that there are no easy answers for Mr Musk when it comes to the future of one of Twitter’s most-read accounts and its place on the platform he may soon be forced to control.