Elon Musk announced on Thursday that he would consider reinstating Alex Jones on X, almost a year after insisting that he would not overturn a ban on the controversial figure, who is known for claiming that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.
“Will consider,” Musk posted in response to a user suggesting Jones’ return, adding that “since this platform aspires to be the global town square, permanent bans should be extremely rare.” Musk mentioned that factually incorrect statements on the platform would be rectified through the Community Notes feature and indicated plans to conduct a poll on whether Jones should be allowed back.
Jones is scheduled as a forthcoming guest on Tucker Carlson’s show on X. Under the previous administration, Fox News hosted Carlson’s program, which the New York Times described as possibly the “most racist show in the history of cable news.” Questions have arisen about whether Jones, the Infowars host, would be permitted back on the platform due to this development.
Twitter, under prior management, permanently banned Jones and other Infowars accounts in 2018 due to violations of abusive behavior policies. Musk, after acquiring Twitter (now renamed X) in 2022, reinstated some prominent banned accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump.
However, Musk firmly rejected a user’s appeal last year to “Bring back Alex Jones!!!” Responding to his post, Musk wrote, “My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
After the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six educators were killed, Jones propagated the conspiracy theory that the shooting never occurred, describing it as a ploy by activists to enforce stringent U.S. gun laws. Some relatives of the victims endured harassment and threats from Jones’ followers, who accused them of being “crisis actors.”
Jones filed for bankruptcy protection after a Connecticut judge ordered him to pay nearly $1.5 billion to the victims’ families. The families then proposed a reduced settlement of at least $85 million over the following decade.
Recent events have seen advertisers such as Apple and Disney suspending campaigns on X in response to Musk’s amplification and endorsement of antisemitic posts. At the 2023 DealBook Summit in New York last week, Musk lashed out at these advertisers, accusing them of attempting to “blackmail” him.
