On November 19 (local time), Elon Musk reinstated the Twitter account of the former President of the United States, Donald Trump. The decision was taken following a poll run by Musk asking people to decide if Trump’s account should be reinstated or not. In a tweet, Musk wrote, “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.” The Latin phrase at the end of the tweet literally translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
The people have spoken.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
Trump will be reinstated.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei. https://t.co/jmkhFuyfkv
Netizens polled in favour of bringing back Trump on Twitter
On November 18 (local time), Elon Musk ran a poll on Twitter asking people to decide if the former US President’s account should be reinstated. The poll received 1,50,85,458 (over 1.5 crores) votes in 24 hours. 51.8 per cent of people voted in favour of reinstating Trump’s account, while 48.2 per cent voted against it.
Reinstate former President Trump
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
At one point, Musk pointed out that the poll received around a million votes per hour.
Trump poll getting ~1M votes/hour!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
Furthermore, as per Musk, around 134 million people viewed the poll.
134M people have seen this poll
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
Trump urged followers to vote in ‘positivity’
Hours before the poll was over, Trump had published a post on Truth Social, a social media platform backed by Donald Trump, urging people to vote on a Twitter poll started by Musk in ‘positivity’. He said, “Vote now with positivity but don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere. Truth Social is special!”
Trump asked his followers to vote. Why would he care if he wasn’t thinking of coming back? pic.twitter.com/ilJH9SQDzN
— James Clayton (@JamesClayton5) November 20, 2022
Trump is not in the mood to get back on Twitter
While the poll was getting an unprecedented response on Twitter, Trump was asked if he was planning to return to Twitter if his account got reinstated during a QA session [4 hours 02 minutes onwards] with NTD News. Trump praised Elon Musk and said, “He [Elon Musk] put up a poll, and I hear it is very overwhelming, very strong. But I have Truth Social, which is really fantastic. It is doing phenomenally well. The press may not talk about it, but it’s doing phenomenally well. I think engagement is much better than Twitter, and its taking care of voices that really wanted to be taken care of…”
The @realDonaldTrump says he doesn’t see any reason for returning to @Twitter just hours before @elonmusk restores the former President’s account. Trump was instead touting his own media platform Truth Social during @RJC Annual Meeting in Las Vegas https://t.co/cX3I56megy pic.twitter.com/Ttm7rXYfu5
— NTD News (@news_ntd) November 20, 2022
He added, “To get back on Twitter, I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it. They have a lot of problems on Twitter, you see what’s going on. It may make it. It may not make it. But the problems are incredible. The engagements are negative. You have a lot of bots, you have a lot of fake accounts, which I think they should get on. But Truth Social is taking place for a lot of people, and I do not see I am going back to Twitter.”
Trump’s suspension
On January 9, 2021, then-President of the United States, Donald Trump, was permanently suspended from Twitter after the Capitol Hall violence of January 6, 2021. Twitter had said, “After a close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Other social media giants like Facebook etc., also suspended Trump’s accounts. Soon after, Trump announced his own social media platform, and in February 2022, Truth Social was launched.
