Alex Jones’ account of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was restored after Musk’s Twitter ban revealed he had lied about killing children for money or fame
According to Musk, Alex Jones’ accounts were restored after a poll on social media site Twitter showed he was in favor of the Sandy Hook school shooting being faked. It poses new uncertainty for advertisers, who were worried about hate speech appearing in their ads, and it is the latest divisive public personality to get back their banned account. 70% of those who responded in favor of the poll were from Musk’s tribe, and he posted the results on Saturday. Musk said early Sunday that the people have spoken. “A few hours later, Jones’ posts were visible again — the last one from 2018, when the company permanently banned him and his Infowars show for abusive behavior. Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, said the move was about protecting those rights. In response to a user who posted that “permanent account bans are antithetical to free speech,” Musk wrote, “I find it hard to disagree with this point. “The billionaire Tesla CEO also tweeted it’s likely that Community Notes — X’s crowd-sourced fact-checking service — “will respond rapidly to any AJ post that needs correction. “It is a major turnaround for Musk, who previously said he wouldn’t let Jones back on the platform despite repeated calls to do so. Musk pointed to the death of his firstborn child and stated that he had no mercy for anyone who used the deaths of children for money or fame. On his show Jones has said that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 people dead was staged in order to tighten gun laws. Relatives of many of the victims sued Jones in Connecticut and Texas, winning nearly $1.5 billion in judgments against him. In October, a judge ruled that Jones could not use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1.1 billon of that debt. Relatives of the school shooting victims testified at the trials about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, who sent threats and even confronted the grieving families in person, accusing them of being “crisis actors” whose children never existed. Jones is appealing the judgments because of the fact that he did not get fair trials and his speech was protected by the First Amendment. Restoring Jones’ account comes as Musk has seen a slew of big brands, including Disney and IBM, stop advertising on X after a report by liberal advocacy group Media Matters said ads were appearing alongside pro-Nazi content and white nationalist posts. Musk endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory in response to a post on X, and they were afraid. The CEO of the electric car maker apologized and toured a kibbutz attacked by Hamas and met with top Israeli leaders. But he also has said advertisers are engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.”Don’t advertise,” Musk said in an on-stage interview late last month at The New York Times DealBook Summit. After buying Twitter last year, Musk said he was granting “amnesty” for suspended accounts and has since reinstated former President Donald Trump, Kanye West following multiple bans over antisemitic posts and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was kicked off the platform for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies. The president has a social media site with his name on it and has only used it once, when he went back on X.
Jones spread false and wild rumors, such as that a New World order was sacrificing children on a California compound, that the U.S. government had weather weapons that caused disasters and that FBI Director Robert Mueller was a demon.
On Saturday Musk took a poll on X, and based on the results decided to reinstate Jones’s account. Previous to the poll, Jones’s last post on the platform was Sept. 6, 2018.
Elon Musk and Elon Jones: Bringing Out the Bad Thinges in the Debate on Trump, Trump, and Tate
The topics covered in the conversation included the “deep state” and threats that the participants perceived to be masculine.
Musk raised eyebrows when he appeared on stage at the DealBook Summit in New York in November and leveled profanities at companies who pulled ads from X.
A number of banned accounts, including those belonging to Donald Trump and Andrew Tate have been restored by Musk.
Later in the call, Musk and Jones were joined by an array of other speakers from the very-online circuit, including Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, conspiracy theorist and former Trump advisor Michael Flynn, US Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), VC and podcast host Jason Calacanis, and influencer Andrew Tate, who earlier this year was charged with rape and human trafficking.
He said that getting to know Jones was an eye opening and that there were many people who had made mistakes and said wrong things.
Jones used a fair amount of the call to argue about the definition of “globalists” and referred to world government as well as social credit scores. Mostly, though, he spent a lot of time praising Musk. “I’m not kissing ass here,” Jones said. Elon, you have big ones, on every front.
Musk has increasingly courted far-right influencers to X under the banner of allowing free speech and open conversations. He has begun to promote and endorse some of their ideas. In November, he replied to a tweet endorsing the antisemitic “great replacement” conspiracy, calling it the “actual truth.”
By the time Calacanis popped onto the X audio call, asking Jones to explain his Sandy Hook comments once again, both Musk and Jones had heard enough. “I’m not gonna live in Groundhog Day,” Jones said, refusing to discuss his remarks further. Musk chimed in later, saying it was answered. People will eventually get weary of you answering their questions.