Musk’s Twitter restores accounts of prominent election deniers two years after Jan. 6 attack | CNN Business

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Elon Musk’s Twitter has restored the accounts of two prominent election deniers who were banned from the platform following the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

The account of “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander was restored on Monday. Alexander took a leadership role in the movement to discredit the 2020 election in the weeks leading up to January 6.

Asked by the Jan. 6 Committee what platform he used to promote the events leading up to that day, Alexander replied, “Mostly Twitter,” according to his statement to the committee made public last month. He has not been charged with any crime.

In the months since Musk took over Twitter, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” has restored the accounts of high-profile figures who were banned from the platform after the January 6 attack , including former President Donald Trump, the former national security adviser. Michael Flynn and others.

As riots erupted in Brazil on Sunday, Alexander appeared to encourage the attack, posting on his Truth Social account an emoji of the Brazilian flag and the message: “I do NOT denounce impromptu visits to the Capitol by people.”

Overnight Monday, Twitter also restored the account of Ron Watkins, a prominent conspiracy theorist who then-President Trump retweeted several times in the days before the Capitol storming.

Watkins played a central role in spreading machine voting conspiracy theories and the 2020 election.

Watkins’ father, Jim, owns the online hate-filled message board 8kun that hosts the QAnon conspiracy theory. An HBO documentary in 2021 identified Ron as possibly being the anonymous figure behind the conspiracy theory, a claim Ron has denied.

Jim Watkins was interviewed by the committee on January 6 last year, where he denied under oath that he or his son Ron were impersonating “Q.”