Twitter has reinstated a slew of previously banned accounts including that of Donald Trump and Ye, formerly Kanye West.

New chief executive Elon Musk set up a poll asking if the former president, who was banned from Twitter in 2021 for casting doubt on the result of the 2020 presidential election, should have his account reinstated.

Over 15 million Twitter users cast votes, with more than half voting in favour of reinstatement. "The people have spoken,” Musk tweeted at the poll’s conclusion. “Trump will be reinstated.”

The billionaire, who recently said that bankruptcy wasn’t out of the question for the social media platform, once dubbed himself a “free speech absolutist” and recently declared Twitter a platform for "freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach”.

Banned comedian Kathy Griffin, right-wing 'internet personality' Andrew Tate, and controversial clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, who was banned for tweeting that trans actor Elliot Page had “her breasts removed by a criminal surgeon”, a statement which ‘deadnamed’ and misgendered the actor, have also had their accounts reinstated.

Musk, however, drew the line at unbanning the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was recently ordered to pay $965 million in damages to families subjected to harassment due to lies Jones peddled about the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting of 2012, with false claims the incident was a staged hoax.

The news comes after Musk launched a paid verification subscription to shore up the company’s finances as various companies have pulled advertising from the website.

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