Even if Elon Musk could reinstate former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, Trump will not be returning to the platform — at least that’s what he told Fox News on Monday.
Rather than tweeting from his formerly favored platform, Trump assured Fox that he would officially start posting “truths” to his new social media app, Truth Social, over the next few days.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump told Fox News on Monday. “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’s announcement comes moments after Musk won a bid to take Twitter private at $54.20 a share. For nearly two weeks, Musk has been maneuvering to purchase the company he calls “the digital town square.” Responding to Musk’s initial statements announcing his plans, Trump told Americano Media on April 14th that he “probably wouldn’t have any interest” in returning to Twitter even if Musk bought it.
“Twitter’s become very boring. They’ve gotten rid of a lot of good voices on Twitter, a lot of their conservative voices,” Trump later said in the Americano Media interview.
Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr. were hopeful for Twitter’s future under Musk, according to interviews with The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel on Monday.
“I think it’s a great thing that Elon’s buying Twitter, because it is not a free speech platform,” Vance told Weigel.
“I agree. It’s not just the sort of limitations of free speech, but even the shadowbanning,” Trump Jr. said.
Truth Social, the Trump Media & Technology Group Twitter clone, formally launched in March but suffered extensive tech issues that rendered the platform nearly unusable. The rollout was marred with glitches and an extensive waitlist for users seeking to make accounts. But after a switch to new cloud services, Truth Social has been running fairly smoothly as of Saturday, and its users are now able to finish registering their accounts.
Earlier this month, the Post reported that Trump “fumed” over Truth’s troubled rollout, suggesting that he would refuse to post until it was fully functional. With Saturday’s infrastructure switch, it’s more likely that Trump will make good on his promise to exclusively post on Truth in the near future.
Trump was permanently suspended from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter following the January 6th riots at the US Capitol. At the time, Twitter said that Trump’s posts could incite further violence.
Trump is optimistic that Musk’s Twitter takeover could benefit the platform. “I think it is good. We want liberty and justice and fairness in our country, and the more we can have open, the better,” he told Fox.
The statement echoes responses from Republican lawmakers and influencers on Musk’s successful purchase.
“Today is an encouraging day for freedom of speech,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a prominent tech hawk, said in a Monday tweet. “I am hopeful that Elon Musk will rein in Big Tech’s history of censoring users that have a different viewpoint.”
“With Elon taking over Twitter, the Regime grows weaker,” Turning Point USA founder and CEO Charlie Kirk said in a Truth Social post on Monday.
Still, Trump said that a Musk-run Twitter wouldn’t pose significant competition to Truth. “I think it is good. We want liberty and justice and fairness in our country, and the more we can have open, the better,” Trump said. “But no, I don’t view that as a competition for what I am doing.”