In a move that will surprise few people, Elon Musk announced Thursday that far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, known for racist, neo-Nazi, and antisemitic views, will soon be allowed back on X.
“Very well, he will be reinstated, provided he does not violate the law, and let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes,” Musk said in a reply to a question from one of Fuentes’s fans. “It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness.”
Fuentes has been banned from X since July 2021. He and his supporters call themselves the “groyper army,” and push racist and white nationalist beliefs while also claiming to uphold Christian values. Groypers gained notoriety for disrupting conservative events and spouting racist statements to troll right-wing accounts on social media. Their activities have even influenced Kanye West, who joined Fuentes for a dinner at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022. Despite accounts stating that Trump was impressed with Fuentes, he later blamed West for bringing Fuentes to the meeting.
Fuentes has denied the Holocaust, and also expressed prejudice against Muslims, LGBTQ people, and even women. He attended the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and was present outside of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., during the insurrection on January 6, 2021. He is still banned from other platforms including Reddit and YouTube, but has a verified account on Trump’s Truth Social.
Musk apparently believes that these viewpoints and activities should not warrant a social media ban, but should be publicly challenged. When he first took over Twitter in 2022, Musk unbanned many accounts who spouted similar beliefs to Fuentes, and has continued to reinstate such accounts, claiming free speech grounds. But Musk has also engaged in random suspensions of left-wing accounts and those critical of him, as well as the wife of deceased Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and the grandson of South African leader Nelson Mandela. At the same time, advertisers continue to flee the site as it is overtaken by newer platforms like Meta’s Threads.
