New Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced Saturday evening that he will reinstate former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account despite Trump having repeatedly stated that he will not use the platform again.
The announcement from Musk comes after more than 15 million people voted in a non-scientific poll that he posted to his account asking if Trump should be reinstated.
The results of the poll showed that 51.8% said, “yes,” while 48.2% said, “no.”
Reinstate former President Trump
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
“The people have spoken,” Musk tweeted. “Trump will be reinstated.”
The former president has repeatedly stated that he will not come back to the platform even if Musk were to reinstate his account.
When news broke back in April that Musk was going to buy Twitter and take the company private, Trump responded by saying that he would not come back.
“I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth,” Trump said. “The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter.”
Trump claimed last month that Twitter could not be “successful without” him and that he would not come back to the platform.
“I am staying on Truth. I like it better, I like the way it works, I like Elon, but I’m staying on Truth,” Trump said late last month. “If I choose to run, I will only use Truth.”
There are also contractual issues at play with Trump using Twitter as a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that Trump agreed to post all of his posts on Truth Social first and must wait at least six hours before he could post the same message to other social media platforms.
The filing states that “President Trump has agreed to first channel any and all social media communications and posts coming from his personal profile to the Truth Social platform before posting that same social media communication and/or post to any other social media platform that is not Truth Social (collectively, ‘Non-TMTG Social Media’) until the expiration of ‘DJT/TMTG Social Media 6-Hour Exclusive’ which means the period commencing when DJT posts any social media communication onto the Truth Social Platform and ending six (6) hours thereafter; provided that he may post social media communications from his personal profile that specifically relates to political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the vote efforts at any time on any Non-TMTG social media platforms.”
This is a breaking news story; refresh the page for updates.