Back from the Ban: Elon Musk Reinstates Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones on X

It took a Sunday poll on X to bring back Alex Jones to the platform five years after the convicted right-wing conspiracy theorist was banned from the platform formerly known as Twitter.

A poll promoted by X owner Elon Musk on Sunday, with nearly 2 million votes cast, saw more than 70% of participants say yes to Jones' reinstatement.

"The people have spoken and so it shall be," Musk posted after the poll closed.

Jones, the founder of InfoWars, a website known for its right-wing rhetoric and conspiracy theories, was banned from Twitter in 2018.

Twitter backed its decision in 2018 saying that Jones had violated its "abusive behavior policy." At that time, Jones was facing a lawsuit for promoting and disseminating demonstrably false theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which were deemed part of his broader conspiracy theories.

In the lawsuit, relatives of Sandy Hook's victims won, and Alex Jones was subsequently obliged to pay $1.5 billion for his claims.

Alex Jones: Anti-Latino, Anti-Immigration

The Sandy Hook case, where 20 children and six educators were tragically killed by a gunman in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, serves as a stark example of Alex Jones' conspiracy theories. He has falsely claimed the shooting was a hoax and that the victims and their families were "crisis actors," aligning this claim with a supposed campaign to promote harsher gun laws.

According to Media Matters, a media watch group, Jones has spread nationalist rants on his shows, claiming, for example, that "Latinos are stealing Americans' birthright."

"'If you look by year 2050 some projections are' that the Latino population will be 'like 70 percent. You are having the birthright of free market and Second Amendment and all this stolen from you,'" Media Matters quoted Jones as saying.

Jones also took it against Haitians, defending former President Donald Trump's comments that they "pledged themselves to Satan."

Jones' efforts to demonize Latinos in the U.S. span several decades. According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League, Jones, a member of the so-called right-wing "Patriot Movement," stated in 2001 that "cultures in Mexico (...) quintessentially put a new height on evil."