Elon Musk on Sunday allowed the right-wing provocateur and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to return to the social media platform X, which banned him more than five years ago for posting harassing messages.

Mr. Jones spent years promoting the claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 was a hoax. Last year, he was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion to the families of eight victims of the massacre for defamation.

Also banned by Facebook and YouTube, Mr. Jones had said he hoped Mr. Musk would reinstate his account on X, which was formerly known as Twitter. In an interview with Tucker Carlson that aired on X on Thursday, Mr. Jones said that users regularly called on Mr. Musk to bring him back to the platform.

“I trend all the time, ‘Hey, if you’re such an absolutist on free speech, bring back Alex Jones,’” Mr. Jones said. “I understand that he needs to go through a process before he does that.”