Elon Musk won’t let far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones back on Twitter, despite the reinstatement of former president Donald Trump and Kanye “Ye” West, who returned with a “Shalom” post after being banned over his various antisemitic rants.
Musk, who broke his pledge that no decisions would happen before a content moderation council had convened, has been reinstating several controversial, banned accounts since his takeover, also including Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate. However, when asked to reinstate Infowars host Jones, Musk first responded with a Bible scripture about children.
After users kept urging him to reconsider his decision — in the name of “free speech,” of course — Musk cited the death of his first child, reportedly at the age of 10 weeks due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
“My firstborn child died in my arms,” Musk tweeted. “I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
Jones, who was banned from the social media platform in 2018 for abusive behavior, spread lies about the government using child actors to stage the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre. Just this month, he was ordered to pay $1.5 billion in damages and compensation to the families of the victims.
Musk previously shared that he wasn’t going to restore Jones’ account; his tweet on Monday explained his reasons not to do so.
Meanwhile, Musk staged a Twitter poll on whether to reinstate Trump’s account on Friday, a query in which 52% of about 15 million accounts approved. Trump was famously banned after he used the social media platform to incite voter fraud conspiracy theories that helped lead to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
This is not the only chaos Musk has triggered since taking over the social media company, as he’s brought about a flood of resignations and cut thousands of jobs after telling the staff that they must sign up to “high intensity and long hours.”
