Elon Musk Buys Twitter: Is He Now Bringing Donald Trump Back?

News of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover sparks controversy. The richest man in the world pretends to want to heal the anger on the internet. What to fear and what to hope for?

The richest man in the world spoke about his latest great treasure about two weeks ago in Vancouver, Canada, at the TED innovation conference. “Twitter has de facto become a kind of marketplace,” said Tesla CEO Elon Musk about the short message service that he will now buy for $44 billion. It is very important, he continued, that people should be able to speak freely in this marketplace.

The richest man in the world has long felt free speech is under threat. The native South African has often criticized that the Twitter group is too harsh and not transparent enough with the content shared by its own users. In the past, right-wing conservative users in particular have repeatedly complained about the platform’s rigid restrictions.

Is Trump returning to Twitter now?

One of the most prominent of them is undoubtedly Donald Trump. The former US President was permanently blocked from the social network in the course of the violent storming of the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. The reason: Trump used Twitter to fuel the illegal uprising against the appointment of his elected successor, Joe Biden.

So now Elon Musk will buy Twitter as a self-declared “free speech absolutist”. And one of the most pressing questions from followers in the Trump camp was: Will Donald Trump now return to the platform? Many other people, however, worry that Musk may only use his fight for free speech to shift public discourse in a dangerous direction, one in which bullying, violence, and hatred may be virtually desired by the new owner to spread unchecked.

But will it really come to that?