Musk takes a U-turn, says Twitter must remain 'politically neutral'

In a bid to silence people who have slammed his 'free speech' idea amid fears of growing polarisation and hatred on the micro-blogging platform, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Thursday that Twitter must remain politically neutral if it wants to keep enjoying public trust.

Musk, who just promoted former US President Donald Trump's new social media platform 'Truth Social' from his Twitter handle, has suddenly changed his tone amid growing criticism against him.

"For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally," he posted to his more than 87 million followers.

Not only promoting Trump, Musk also slammed Indian-origin Twitter legal head Vijaya Gadde over censoring exclusive stories related to US President Joe Biden's son Hunter's laptop in the wake of the Capitol Hill violence.

"Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organisation for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate," Musk said in a tweet.

Musk said this in reply to podcast host Saagar Enjeti who shared a Politico report, stating that Gadde reportedly had a tearful virtual meeting with her teams, expressing concerns over the future of the platform, after Musk took over Twitter in a $44 billion deal.

Musk had long been advocating free speech on the platform, creating apprehensions for many as they fear the site will be left without regulations.

"The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all," Musk wrote on Twitter.

"By 'free speech', I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask the government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people," he had explained.

The world's richest man also supported Trump's social network app 'Truth Social' by sharing its App Store ranking on his microblogging handle.

"Truth Social is currently beating Twitter and TikTok on the Apple Store," the Tesla CEO captioned the screenshot.

Meanwhile, Trump has decided not to join Twitter despite Musk buying it, saying "Twitter has become very boring".