Elon Musk says 'Hey stop defaming me' after coming under fire for letting Donald Trump back on Twitter
- Elon Musk said on Saturday night he would restore Donald Trump's Twitter account.
- He's coming under fire for his decision after 51.8% voted for Trump's return in a Twitter poll.
Elon Musk is coming under fire for his decision to lift the ban on Donald Trump's Twitter account, telling one tweeter: "Hey stop defaming me!"
His comment to Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, came after he criticized Musk's decision in a series of tweets. "For @elonmusk to allow Donald Trump back on Twitter, ostensibly after a brief poll, shows he is not remotely serious about safeguarding the platform from hate, harassment and misinformation."
Greenblatt also said: "When @ADL and other #StopHateforProfit leaders met with Elon Musk on 11/1, he committed to not replatform anyone, regardless of stature, until he installed a transparent, clear process that took into consideration the views of civil society."
He added that Musk's decisions "over the last month have been erratic and alarming, but this decision is dangerous and a threat to American democracy. We need to ask — is it time for Twitter to go?"
Another user quote-tweeted an October 28 post where Musk announced he would be forming a "content moderation council" before any decisions surrounding content moderation or account reinstatement are made. An MSNBC executive producer tweeted: "So much for that whole 'content moderation council'."
Musk also announced on Friday that some suspended accounts belonging to Kathy Griffin and The Babylon Bee would be reinstated. At the time, he said a decision regarding Trump's account had not been made yet.
But while some users have voiced their discontent over Trump's reinstatement, one person said that the 45th US president should have "all of his previous followers intact." Musk responded that engineers were already working on it.
Although he said on his social media app Truth Social on Saturday that he wouldn't be "going anywhere," Trump is yet to make a statement about a return to Twitter since his account was reinstated.
The former president was banned from Twitter following the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.
Musk said in May it was "not correct to ban Donald Trump." He told a Financial Times conference: "I think that was a mistake. It alienated the country and did not result in Donald Trump not having a voice. I think it was a morally bad decision and foolish in the extreme."
Twitter and a representative for Donald Trump didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider.