Elon Musk reinstates Alex Jones on X
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Elon Musk reinstated far-right figure Alex Jones on the social media platform on Sunday, a year after pledging never to allow him back.
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Infowars host Alex Jones speaks outside of the Dirksen building on Capitol Hill on Sept. 5, 2018, in Washington (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X has reinstated far-right figure Alex Jones on the social media platform on Sunday, a year after pledging never to allow him back.
Jones, who claimed that a December 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 20 children and six instructors was a hoax, was banned from the site in 2018 for breaking its "abusive behavior policy."
He was also sued by the relatives of the Sandy Hook school massacre victims and was ordered to pay more than a billion dollars in damages last year.
Musk has previously stated that he would never allow the Infowars presenter to return to the social media network but changed his mind after he conducted a poll to which 2 million users responded.
Musk expressed on X that "I vehemently disagree with what he said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?"
However, Shannon Watts, the founder of the Moms Demand Action group, which advocates for stricter gun legislation, stated that "defamation is not free speech."
Musk's move comes as Sandy Hook families mark the 11th anniversary of the December 14 tragedy, which Jones claims was staged for the government to crack down on gun rights.
Jones, who has a million followers on X, made his first appearance on the site by retweeting Andrew Tate, the notorious former kickboxer facing human trafficking accusations in Romania, who praised Jones' "triumphant return."
In late October, Musk derided allegations of Iran being a warmonger. He ridiculed the American authorities' assertion by posting an image of several US military bases surrounding Iran's borders on his platform.
Jones is not the only person to be banned on the platform. Kanye West’s account on the social media platform was banned for 8-months following a tweet he posted of a swastika and claiming in an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in December 2022, on his platform Infowars: "I like Hitler," Ye told Jones. "I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis."
