Elon Musk has posted a poll on Twitter asking users to vote on whether former US President Donald Trump, who was banned from the social media site by its previous owners, should be reinstated.
The Twitter boss accompanied it with the words: “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” – a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Before buying Twitter, Musk said he would reverse the platform’s “stupid” ban on Trump if he took over the company.
“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam, scam accounts. I think it was wrong to ban Donald Trump,” he said in May.
“I think it was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and ultimately it didn’t result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter in January 2021 following the attack by his supporters on the US Capitol that left several people dead.
The tech company said it made the decision after the Jan. 6 riots “because of the risk of further incitement to violence.”
At the time, Trump had more than 80 million followers on the platform.
It comes as the billionaire owner of Tesla asked remaining Twitter employees who write software code to report to the 10th floor of the San Francisco office at 2pm local time on Saturday, according to an email seen by Reuters news agency.
“If possible, I would appreciate it if I could fly to SF to be there in person,” Musk said in the email, adding that he would be at the company’s headquarters until midnight and return Saturday morning.
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2:02 Mass layoffs on Twitter
On Friday, an estimated hundreds of Twitter employees decided to leave the company after a Thursday deadline from Mr. Musk that employees accept longer and more intense work patterns or quit smoking.
The exodus adds to the rapid change and chaos that have marked the first three weeks of Mr. Musk as owner of Twitter, during which the company’s workforce had already been more than halved through layoffs and other departures to about 3,700.
With so much of Twitter’s workforce now gone, there is speculation that the site will crash during the World Cup, one of the site’s busiest traffic events.
Read more: World Cup risks knocking out Twitter after staff exodus. Is this the end of “big tech”? Twitter employee’s laptop wiped and accounts locked
Social media expert Matt Navarra told the PA news agency that the chances of Twitter going offline have “increased dramatically” in the past 24 hours due to the latest exodus.
He said he believes any imminent shutdown is unlikely because certain roadblocks prevent changes to the platform’s base code while Musk reorganizes the company.
“There is a code freeze and Twitter is running on autopilot right now with its IT systems, and this is a strategic move by Elon Musk to protect the stability of the platform while he figures out the next move,” he said. Navarre .
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