Elon Musk restores X account of Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and far-right broadcaster best known for co-founding the fake news website InfoWars and spreading false claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Alex Jones and InfoWars were given a “permanent ban” from Twitter in 2018, the social media site that rebranded itself as X earlier this year under Musk’s ownership. The billionaire paid $44 billion for Twitter at the end of 2022 and has since reinstated numerous accounts that had been banned before the acquisition, including several belonging to prominent controversial figures such as Rep.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the satirical right-wing outlet Babylon Bee, and former President Donald Trump were all kicked off Twitter for violating the company’s rules against misinformation, hateful behavior, and inciting violence.
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Musk announced the reinstatement of Alex Jones’ X account in a Saturday post that included the results of a poll asking social media users whether they supported Alex Jones return to the site or not. He has previously conducted similar polls before restoring other controversial accounts that were banned under Twitter’s previous leadership.
“Reinstate Alex Jones on this platform?” Musk wrote alongside “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” — a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God,” which was a slogan used by the defunct conservative Whig party — and the poll results, which showed that 70% of respondents supported Jones’ account being restored.
“The people have spoken, and so it shall be,” Musk said, adding, “it shall be.”
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO vowed shortly after taking over Twitter last year that he would never reinstate Jones’ account. Musk wrote in a November 2022 post, “My firstborn child died in my arms,” after initially responding with a straightforward “No” to Jones’s requests for reinstatement, who was barred from Twitter for abusive behavior.
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I could feel his last heartbeat. I have no sympathy for anyone who would exploit the deaths of children for personal gain, political gain, or fame.”
Alex Jones has faced defamation lawsuits for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook massacre was “a hoax,” and he has been ordered to pay more than $1 billion in damages to the families of the 26 people killed in the 2012 shooting. Twenty of those killed were children between the ages of six and seven. The others were members of the school’s adult staff.
Musk said on Saturday in a separate social media post about Jones’ X account, “I vehemently disagree with what he said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or not?”
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“In the end, that’s all it comes down to.” If people vote him back in, X will suffer financially, but principles are more important than money,” he wrote.
New content moderation policies on Musk’s X have alienated advertisers who are concerned about their ads appearing alongside hate speech on the site. His calls for “free speech” on X have sparked a growing backlash, and in some cases, widespread condemnation, over the last year, as critics point to the site’s lax harassment policies.
