Musk agrees to pay Trump $10m to settle lawsuit over his Twitter ban in wake of January 6 riot

X, formerly Twitter, is set to follow in Meta’s footsteps and become the second social media company to settle a Trump lawsuit concerning account suspensions following the Capitol riots. Elon Musk‘s X has agreed to pay Donald Trump about $10 million to settle a lawsuit after the social media giant banned the president over inflammatory tweets sent during the Jan 6. riots, sources say. Trump’s legal team filed the suit against the company, which was then called Twitter, and its CEO Jack Dorsey in July 2021 after permanently suspending his account on January 8 that year “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”.

Musk, who completed the acquisition of the social media platform in October 2022, reinstated Trump’s account a month after the takeover. Sources say that the president ultimately decided to move forward with the settlement despite his close relationship with his so-called First Buddy Musk, whom he put in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency to slash bureaucracy and federal spending. X became the second social media platform to settle a Trump lawsuit.

Meta paid out $25 million after settling a similar lawsuit with Trump over the suspension of his Facebook account. The president’s attorneys are expected to pursue a settlement with Google – a federal contractor – following a YouTube ban in Janaury 2021, according to the sources. Musk, Google Chief Sundar Pichai Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg were on the list of tech leaders at Trump’s inauguration on Janaury 20.

Lawsuits against all three tech companies were filed in July 2021. A federal judge initially dismissed the Twitter case in May 2022, rejecting Trump’s argument that the company was implausibly operating as a “state actor” when it suspended his account. The president’s lawyers appealed the decision and a federal appeals court heard arguments in fall 2023. At the time of initially filing the suit, it was viewed as part of a broader strategy to appeal to conservatives who argued against alleged censorship from social media companies.

After losing the 2020 election, Trump used the platform to spread false reports about voting fraud and to encourage MAGA loyalists to travel to Washington, DC for the “Save America” march at noon on Jan. 6, 2021. There, the president declared he would “never concede” the election. That afternoon, a mob of violent Trump supporters descended on the Capitol contesting the result of the 2020 presidential election after Trump lost to Joe Biden. The certification was overseen by then-Vice President Mike Pence.

He tweeted 25 times on the evening before and day of the insurrection. “Get smart Republicans. FIGHT!,” he wrote in the small hours of January 6, 2021. At approximately 8:22 a.m., he wrote: “THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, OUR COUNTRY, NEEDS THE PRESIDENCY MORE THAN EVER BEFORE - THE POWER OF THE VETO. STAY STRONG!”. Trump used his account to falsely broadcast that Pence had the authority to prevent the election from being certified and failed to act.

After seemingly whipping up supporters, by 2.38 p.m. Trump reminded insurrections to “stay peaceful”. Just weeks earlier, Trump tweeted that it was "statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election,” adding: "Be there, will be wild!". Some 1,500 people were granted clemency by Trump on the first day of his second administration last month, after being charged with crimes connected to the Jan 6. attack.