Elon Musk on Tuesday said he would reinstate former President Donald Trump's Twitter account.

The Tesla CEO who's vying to buy Twitter and take it private for a reported price tag of $44 billion commented on the Financial Times Future of the Car conference.

"I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump," Musk said. "I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice."

Musk added that Trump's ban was "morally wrong and flat-out stupid."

Trump's account was permanently banned after the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, with Twitter saying his continued presence on the platform was a "risk of further incitement of violence."

Musk added that permanent bans should be "extremely rare" and reserved for "bots, or spam/scam accounts."

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," he said in a recent statement.

Trump has said he does not intend to rejoin Twitter and will focus mostly on the social network he launched called Truth Social. (AA/VOA)