Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones won’t be returning to Twitter and will remain banned from the platform, according to its new owner, Elon Musk.
Musk declared on Friday that Jones’ account will not be restored, in spite of some users’ requests, and spent the weekend defending the decision even as Twitter moved to restore other suspended accounts including that of former President Donald Trump.
“No,” Musk tweeted flatly in response to one user’s call for Jones to be reinstated on Twitter.
Musk elaborated on his position Sunday evening, citing Bible scripture and his own personal experience with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to explain his opposition to Jones, who has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for his lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
“My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat,” Musk tweeted. “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
The announcement on Jones prompted a flood of replies, with some Twitter users commending Musk for continuing to deny Jones a platform while others, including some of Jones’ own self-professed supporters, said it showed Musk’s inconsistent and arbitrary support for free-speech principles.
After one Twitter user criticized Musk’s decision and expressed disappointment that Jones would not be allowed back on Twitter, Musk replied: “Too bad.”
In a response video posted Friday to the alternative video site Rumble, Jones said he didn’t care if he was allowed back on Twitter, and listed various other digital platforms where his content remains accessible.
“Don’t blame Musk at the end of the day because he didn’t bring me back,” Jones urged his followers. “I’m the most controversial figure in the world because I’m the most threatening to the new world order. So don’t expect him to bring me back on day one.”
While Musk appeared to draw a line at Jones’ conspiracy theories on school shootings, he has taken a more permissive stance on Covid-19 misinformation. On Monday, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said her personal account had been restored after it was banned from Twitter at the beginning of the year for repeatedly violating platform policies on Covid-19.
At the time, Twitter had banned Greene over th