Photo: WADE VANDERVORT / AFP / Getty Images
Donald Trump said Saturday that he sees “a lot of problems in Twitter” and will stick to its own social media platform, offering an initial response to the decision to Elon Musk to restore the former president’s personal account of social networks, the billionaire Elon Musk.
Trump poured cold water on the idea of returning to Twitter on same Saturday.
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The former president said during a virtual appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition leadership meeting that while he “always liked” Musk and was happy he bought Twitter, he “sees no reason” to return to the platform, according to Bloomberg News.
Following his exile from mainstream social media, Trump and some of his allies launched a rival social media site called Truth Social.
On Saturday night, Musk tweeted: “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei”. The Latin phrase means “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Shortly thereafter, the Twitter account @RealDonaldTrump was reactivated.
Trump’s reinstatement to Twitter comes at a time of heightened concern about the potential for political violence fueled by growing polarization and increasingly aggressive rhetoric from Republicans who continue to deny that Trump has lost the presidential elections of 1200.
That includes Trump himself, who took to Truth Social to criticize voter fraud and openly embrace the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory.
While Trump reaches a much smaller audience there (4.5 million followers), the screenshots and quotes from his Truth Social posts are still being shared on the platforms that support him. banned, as well as other popular right-wing alternative social networking sites.
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Twitter was the first social media platform to ban Trump after he his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2022, saying that his tweets violated the rules against the glorification of violence. That decision was quickly followed by bans on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitch and other internet companies.
Twitter is now the first to restore the former president’s account, giving him access once again to the powerful megaphone he used for years to attack his political enemies.