Donald Trump said he had no interest in returning to Twitter even as a slim majority vote in favor of reinstating the former US President, who was ban from the social media service for inciting violence, in a poll organize by new owner Elon Musk.
Slightly over 15 million Twitter users vote in the poll with 51.8% voting in favor of reinstatement.
Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which had over 88 million followers before he was ban on 8th January, 2021, began accumulating followers and had nearly 100,000 followers by 10pm ET Saturday (8:30 AM Monday IST).
Some users initially report being unable to follow the reinstated account on Saturday evening.
Donald Trump said he would stick with his new platform Truth Social, the app develop by his Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) startup, which he said had better user engagement than Twitter and was doing “phenomenally well“.
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.
Donald Trump, who launch a bid to regain the White House in 2024, prais Elon Musk and said he had always like him.
But Donald Trump also said Twitter suffer from bots, fake accounts and that the problems it face were “incredible“.
Elon Musk first said in May he plan to reverse the ban on Donald Trump, and the timing of any return by Donald Trump was closely watch and fear by many of Twitter’s advertisers.
This week, Elon Musk reinstate comedian Kathy Griffin, who had ban for changing her profile name to “Elon Musk” which violate his new rule against impersonation without indicating it was a parody account.
There has no new information about process or the moderation council.
A no-show by Donald Trump could reduce concerns among major advertisers, who are already rattled by Musk’s drastic reshaping of Twitter.
Donald Trump has halved the workforce and severely cut the company’s trust and safety team, which is responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and harmful content.
These actions and Elon Musk’s tweeting have push major companies to halt advertising on the site as they monitor how the platform handles hate speech.
