Days after the former US president announced another White House candidacy, Donald Trump‘s Twitter account was reactivated on Saturday after the platform’s new owner Elon Musk conducted a survey in which a slim majority of respondents favored the action.
Trump’s participation in the mob of his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol on January 6 in an effort to change the outcome of the 2020 election resulted in his expulsion from the platform at the beginning of last year.
“The conversation is over. Trump would regain his position, “Soon after the 24-hour poll closed,” Musk tweeted.
He continued, “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” repeating a Latin proverb that he had shared on Friday, which means “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Out of the 237 million daily users of Twitter, more than 15 million people cast votes on whether to reinstate the contentious profile, with 51.8 percent voting in favor and 48.2 percent voting against it.
During his presidency, Trump delighted in using Twitter as a voice, tweeting policy announcements, criticizing political competitors, and interacting with supporters. At the time his account was stopped, he had more than 88 million subscribers.
Musk’s poll, which the billionaire Twitter CEO released on Friday, asks for a straightforward “yes” or “no” response to the words “Reinstate former President Trump.”
Watching the Twitter Trump poll is fascinating. A barrage of tweets from the controversial and aggressive new owner of the one-to-many chat network featured Musk’s musings on Saturday morning.
Similar polls have been posted by him in the past. Last year, he asked fans if he should sell stock in his electric vehicle firm, Tesla. He sold more than $1 billion worth of stock after that poll.
“I Have Truth Social”
Trump declared on Saturday that he would stay on his own network, Truth Social, which he had established after being kicked off of Twitter.
Trump claimed he appreciated the survey and was a fan of Musk while making an appearance via video at a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Las Vegas. However, he seemed to reject any feedback.
He did post a poll, and it received a resounding majority, however, I have something called Truth Social.
I don’t see it because I don’t see any purpose for it, the speaker responded when asked if he would return to the platform.
By late Saturday, Trump hadn’t tweeted anything, but he had shared a number of unrelated posts on his Truth Social account, including editorials denouncing the US Justice Department’s choice to appoint a special counsel this week to look into his involvement in the attack on the Capitol.
However, a number of his allies in politics were publicizing his comeback.
Paul Gosar, a Republican in the House, tweeted, “Welcome back, @realdonaldtrump.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent supporter of Trump whose personal account is also suspended, retweeted a number of his prior tweets from her official government account, including several that still had fact-checking badges debunking his assertions about alleged 2020 election fraud.
She wrote, “Anyone who believes President Trump won’t win the 2024 primary is fooling themselves.”
In response to the news, anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney, co-chair of the congressional panel looking into the Capitol attack, lost her attempt for re-election. She tweeted a link to a video of one of the committee’s meetings.
It’s a fantastic time to watch this Jan. 6 hearing now that Trump is back on Twitter, she tweeted.
It contains all of Trump’s tweets from that day, even the ones that have been removed, and many Trump White House staff members are quoted as describing his despicable behavior while the violence was occurring.
Other banned accounts, such as the one belonging to comedian Kathy Griffin that was deleted after she used his online persona, have been reinstated by Musk.
Twitter in chaos
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has drawn criticism for making significant changes to Twitter, a company based in California that he recently acquired for $44 billion.
Since then, he has fired half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees and abandoned a work-from-home policy, even as his efforts to transform the business have been met with resistance and setbacks.
Numerous workers resigned instead to comply with Musk’s instructions that they prepare for long, arduous days at the new Twitter.
He failed miserably in his attempts to reimagine user verification with a contentious membership service, which resulted in a flood of bogus accounts and practical jokes and forced big advertisers off the network.
