Elon Musk at Donald Trump's inauguration (Credit: Kevin Lamarque/Pool/Getty Images) President Donald Trump has quietly ended a lawsuit against Twitter (now X) over the social network banning him following the US Capitol riots. The lawsuit, filed in 2021, accused the company—still more than a year away from being acquired by Tesla CEO Elon Musk—of violating his First Amendment rights by permanently suspending his account "due to the risk of further incitement of violence." On Jan. 6, 2021, as his supporters stormed the US Capitol building in a bid to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president, Trump posted a video in which he continued to lie about winning the 2020 election before telling those gathered at the Capitol to "go home now." But the clip ended with him telling them "We love you, you’re very special." The First Amendment protects people from government censorship, but private companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter are largely free to police their own platforms and ban those who violate their terms of service. As such, a court dismissed the lawsuit in 2022, but Trump's team appealed, arguing that Twitter acted at the behest of lawmakers who called for him to be banned. Judges who heard that appeal in late 2023 appeared skeptical, Politico reported. Since then, there had been little movement on the case, and it was paused in November when Trump's team notified the court that "settlement talks were ongoing," Bloomberg reports. Once Musk took over Twitter in 2022, Trump's account was reinstated. By then, Trump had started his own social media company, Truth Social. Trump's accounts on on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram were also revived. Court documents about Trump dropping the case against X, first spotted by TechCrunch, states that all "parties have agreed that each side shall bear its costs and fees." Recommended by Our Editors