Even if his account is reopened following billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (TWTR.N), former US President Donald Trump indicated on Monday that he will not return to the social media platform.
Trump told Fox News that he will join his own business, Truth Social, in the next seven days, as scheduled.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on Truth,” Trump told Fox News. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll improve it and he’s a good man,” Trump remarked, “but I’m going to stay on Truth.”
Since joining Twitter in May 2009, Donald Trump’s use of social media has drew worldwide attention. Trump has tweeted around 57,000 times in the last roughly twelve years, including approximately 8,000 times during the 2016 election campaign and over 25,000 times during his presidency.
The tweets, according to the White House, should be considered official declarations. Trump’s account @realDonaldTrump has over 88.9 million followers when he was permanently banned from Twitter in January 2021, during the closing days of his presidency.
For the majority of Trump’s administration, his Twitter account remained unmoderated in the name of “public interest,” despite the fact that he frequently made provocative and inaccurate remarks. On July 16, 2019, the House of Representatives voted largely along party lines to punish him for “racist sentiments” he had tweeted two days before. In the face of this political backlash, he just increased the frequency of his tweets.
According to a New York Times study published November 2, 2019, Trump has retweeted at least 145 accounts that “have pushed conspiracy or fringe content, including more than two dozen that have since been suspended” throughout his time in office. Trump also distributed false information on the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
During his reelection campaign in 2020, he made misleading claims about postal voting and electoral fraud, prompting Twitter to either remove or mark such posts as disputed. In the weeks running up to Joe Biden’s inauguration, Trump continued to disparage the election results after his electoral loss.
His tweets contributed to the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, during the formal counting of electoral votes. Despite the fact that Trump was exonerated by the Senate during his second impeachment trial, social media firms quickly blacklisted him. A permanent ban has been announced by Facebook and Instagram (although, in June 2021, they said they would revisit the ban in January 2023).
During his reelection campaign in 2020, he made misleading claims about postal voting and electoral fraud, prompting Twitter to either remove or mark such posts as disputed. In the weeks running up to Joe Biden’s inauguration, Trump continued to disparage the election results after his electoral loss. His tweets contributed to the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, during the formal counting of electoral votes.
Despite the fact that Trump was exonerated by the Senate during his second impeachment trial, social media firms quickly blacklisted him. A permanent ban has been announced by Facebook and Instagram (although, in June 2021, they said they would revisit the ban in January 2023).