Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, at the discussion “Innovation potential in Africa, in Berlin, Germany.
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Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates told CNBC that social media companies should eventually take their muzzle off former President Donald Trump, despite his “corrosive” theories of conspiracy electoral fraud.
“I think at some point, he’ll probably be allowed to come back and he probably should be allowed to come back,” Microsoft co-founder said in an interview Thursday morning.
CNBC co-host “Squawk Box” Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Gates if he would let Trump return to social media if he was on Facebook’s oversight board.
That social media giant and others, including Twitter, suspended Trump from their platforms after he spread a series of unfounded and false conspiracy theories about the loss of his election to President Joe Biden.
Democrats and some Republicans have blamed Trump for encouraging the January 6 US Capitol riot that killed five people. The Senate dropped 10 votes on Saturday ahead of Trump’s sentencing to his indictment.
“It’s weird when you find out that the election was stolen without any facts there. And how corrosive this is,” said Gates, who also criticized the Trump administration’s administration of the coronavirus pandemic.
“But I bet they’ll find a way to let him come back,” he added, saying Trump’s future fake posts could be slapped with warning labels.
“You know in a way … people’s interest in what he says can go down quite a bit,” Gates added. – It will be interesting to watch.
As social media was not available to him, Trump made fewer statements since leaving the White House on January 20th.
After Rush Limbaugh’s death on Wednesday, Trump turned to Fox News for his first post-presidential phone interview, during which he repeated many of the false election claims that led social media companies to ban him.