Former President, Donald Trump, has claimed that he has no intention of rejoining Twitter even if his account is reinstated following Elon Musk’s agreement to buy the social media giant for roughly $44 billion.
Trump told local media that he will instead focus on his own platform, Truth Social, which according to reports, has been mired in problems since its launch earlier this year.
“I am not going on Twitter. I am going to stay on Truth,” Trump averred. “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 further noted that he welcomes Musk’s purchase and told local media that he didn’t see Twitter as his own product’s competition.
“Truth Social will be a voice for me, and that’s something nobody else can get,” Trump said.
At a rally in Ohio on Saturday, Trump also urged his supporters to join him on Truth Social.
“Go out and sign up now. Have a lot of fun,” Trump told his supporters.
Trump’s Social Media Venture in trouble?
Meanwhile, reports indicate that Elon Musk’s quest to become a social media mogul is dealing a blow to Donald Trump’s social venture. Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corporation, a controversial blank-check firm that plans to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group, fell 13% on Monday, April 25, 2022, to close at $35.71, per reports.
According to reports, at one point, the stock was down as much as 19%. That’s the lowest level since the Trump deal was announced in October 2021.
Trump Media & Technology Group recently launched Truth Social, a Twitter clone, mainly for Trump followers and conservatives, whom Trump claims Twitter has silenced.
“There’s no need to download Truth Social if you can get it on Twitter,” Matthew Kennedy, Senior IPO market strategist at Renaissance Capital said.
It can be recalled that Trump was barred from major social media platforms after the January 2021 insurrection, with Twitter citing the “risk of further incitement of violence”. At the time, the former President had roughly 89 million followers on Twitter alone.
Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and a self-described “free-speech absolutist”, had said he wanted to buy and privatize Twitter because he believed it wasn’t living up to its potential as a free speech platform. Elon’s buying of Twitter raised questions about whether he might reinstate Trump’s account, as the former President lays the groundwork for another White House run in 2024.
According to some reports, Trump has continued to spread lies about his 2020 election defeat in speeches and statements since leaving office, and it is unclear how Musk would approach those statements if Trump were ever to return to the site.
After being kicked off social media platforms, Trump launched his own social media app and sued Twitter, Facebook, and Google’s YouTube, claiming he and some of his supporters had been wrongfully censored, even though posts by his followers are routinely the most widely shared, some reports disclosed.
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