Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, in the discussion “The potential of innovation in Africa, in Berlin, Germany.
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Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates told CNBC that social media companies should take out the muzzles of former President Donald Trump, despite his “corrosive” conspiracy theories of election fraud.
“I think at some point you will probably be allowed to come back in and you probably should be allowed to come back,” the Microsoft co-founder said in an interview aired Thursday morning.
CNBC co-host “Squawk Box,” Andrew Ross Sorkin, had asked Gates if he would let Trump back on social media if he was on Facebook’s oversight board.
That social media giant and others, including Twitter, had suspended Trump from his platforms after he spread a series of unfounded and false conspiracy theories about his election loss to President Joe Biden.
Democrats and some Republicans have blamed Trump for fomenting the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in which five people died. On Saturday, the Senate fell to ten votes to convict Trump in his impeachment trial.
“It’s weird that you say the election was stolen without any facts. And it’s corrosive,” said Gates, who has also criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“But I’ll bet they’ll find a way to let it go,” he added, saying future Trump fake messages could suffer warning labels.
“You know in a way … people’s interest in what he says can diminish quite a bit,” Gates added. “It will be interesting to see.”
With social media not available to him, Trump has issued fewer statements since leaving the White House on January 20th.
After the death of Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday, Trump called Fox News for his first post-presidential phone interview, during which he repeated many of the false election claims that led to social media companies banning him.