Elon Musk Hasn’t Been Able to Woo Trump Back to Twitter, So He’s Trying Marjorie Taylor Greene Instead

Jon Blistein
·3 min read
441
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
Capitol Hill - Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Capitol Hill - Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Following his so-far unsuccessful attempt to lure Donald Trump back to Twitter, Elon Musk has opened the social media platform up to another once-banned far-right favorite: Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Greene’s personal account was reinstated Monday, Nov. 21, one day after Trump’s account was reinstated. Greene was suspended back in January for repeatedly violating the site’s Covid-19 misinformation policy at the time. The last straw came when she tweeted an image of a graph that used uncorroborated data to suggest that the covid vaccine was causing widespread death amongst recipients.

More from Rolling Stone

Despite the ban on her personal account, Greene did retain her official congressional. She used that one to celebrate her return, writing, “I’m the only Member of Congress the unelected big tech oligarchs permanently banned. On January 2, 2022, they violated my freedom of speech and ability to campaign & fundraise crying ‘covid misinformation.’ My account is back.”

Grene’s congressional account added, “Go follow @mtgreenee for MTG unfiltered ;).” (As of publication, Greene had not tweeted anything unfiltered from her reinstated account.)

Greene has ostensibly been anticipating the reinstatement of her personal account since this spring when Musk first announced he was buying Twitter. Though Musk hadn’t made any comments about restoring banned accounts at the time — and he had still yet to go through several months of trying to weasel out of the deal — Greene confidently tweeted from her congressional account in April, “Prepare for blue check mark full-scale meltdown after @elonmusk  seals the deal and I should get my personal Twitter account restored.”

Even before she dove headfirst into medical conspiracies, Greene’s social media presence was defined by misinformation, vitriol, and conspiracy. Before she assumed office, Greene promoted Qanon conspiracies and even blamed a wildfire in California on the existence of a Jewish-controlled space laser. She spread conspiracy theories that the mass shootings in Parkland, Las Vegas, and Sandy Hook were false flag operations orchestrated by gun control advocates. Greene feuded with survivors of the Parkland shooting, even filming herself harassing and berating Parkland survivor and activist David Hogg. In one social media post, Greene referred to him as “#LittleHitler.”

This summer, in the aftermath of a shooting at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, Greene suggested the shooting was staged to “persuade Republicans to go along with more gun control.” She later tweeted an extensive thread on Twitter in which she blamed mass shootings on the use of antidepressants. Greene tweeted an obviously photoshopped image of the Highland Park shooter in a jail cell and demanded to know if he was “in jail or rehab or a psychiatric center in [the] photo?” “That’s not his bedroom,” Greene wrote, “what drugs or psychiatric drugs or both does he use?”

In August, during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Greene tweeted that Republican senators voting to confirm Jackson were “pro-pedophile.” The allegation was part of widespread efforts by Republicans to discredit Jackson and included insinuations that she would have defended Nazi war criminals and bizarre lines of questioning regarding her thoughts on babies being racist.

It’s clear that Greene’s social media troubles have not been a deterrent to either herself or GOP leadership. Representative Kevin McCarthy, who is vying for a position as the new House speaker, has indicated that he will be lifting Greene’s ban from holding committee assignments in the new congress. Greene herself has indicated that she plans to use any new powers she’s granted with gusto, telling a crowd of Trump supporters at an October rally that “there’s a lot of traitors and criminals that need to be held accountable.”

Now she has two accounts with which to spread her message.

This story is developing…

Best of Rolling Stone

Click here to read the full article.