Nearly two years after Twitter suspended former President Donald Trump’s account, the company’s new owner has reinstated the profile.
As of this writing, all of Trump’s prior posts are visible on the site, though he has not posted anything new since Elon Musk’s decision to reactivate the account.
Musk cited the results of a poll he posted to his own Twitter profile in announcing his decision to restore Trump’s profile.
The people have spoken.
Trump will be reinstated.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei. https://t.co/jmkhFuyfkv
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
Although Trump has not added any new tweets to the account, news of his reinstatement attracted plenty of attention in recent days. Many of his supporters sounded off in response to the most recent tweet available, which Trump posted on Jan. 8, 2021.
A number of such responses simply welcomed him back to the platform, but many more offered a more in-depth reaction to the news.
One user thanked Musk for the move and predicted that he and Trump would work together to “save our nation.”
Another Trump supporter declared that his return to Twitter represented “[h]istory in the making.”
Of course, calling it a return might not be an accurate representation. After all, he has made it clear that he has no intention of resuming his prior use of the popular social media platform.
Since his profile was banned, Trump has developed a competing site, Truth Social, and seems content sharing his thoughts with that smaller but more loyal audience.
He recently applauded Musk for successfully taking control of Twitter, but reiterated his prior thoughts about returning.
“I don’t see any reason for it,” Trump said. “There are a lot of problems in Twitter, you see what’s going on. They may or may not make it but the problems are terrible. The engagements are negative. And you have a lot of bots and you have a lot of fake accounts.”
Despite his trepidation, the enthusiastic responses of his supporters could signal that a return to Twitter would help him reach more voters as his 2024 White House bid takes shape.
Musk has reinstated a number of other suspended accounts since buying the platform, including social commentator Jordan Petersen and parody news site The Babylon Bee. He appears to have drawn the line at restoring conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ profile.
