One of the first questions raised after the purchase was confirmed was whether the platform would be reinstated.
Trump told Fox News on Monday that the answer to the question is no.
"The answer is no, but I am not returning to Twitter," Trump says.
Instead, the former president said that he will use his own social media platform, Truth Social, which was launched earlier this year due to a host of limitations.
Following the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol, Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter, claiming that it was suspending the account "due to the possibility of further incitement of violence." That prompted a slew of complaints by Trump and others that the platform was biased against conservative voices, despite longstanding claims that suspensions and sanctions imposed on users are for violation of terms of service.
The outcry from the right has resulted in years of complaints on Capitol Hill, with some lawmakers calling for immediate or immediate repeal of Section 230, the provision of a 1996 statute, which gives Twitter and other social media sites immunity from lawsuits for their content moderation practices, as well as for postings of third parties.
President Joe Biden has called for reforming Section 230, but his criticism of social media has been that companies have allowed misinformation to spread, especially about Covid and immunizations. At the White House, press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday that "no matter who owns or runs Twitter, the president has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms and their influence on our daily lives."
Musk is expected to take a much more lenient approach to content moderation and perhaps restore accounts of Trump and other people who have been left under current management.
Presumably as quickly as the word spread that Trump was not planning to return to Twitter, there is also speculation that his exclusivity to his own website will be short-lived, and that he would find it just too difficult to resist returning to the platform that, day in and day out, aided him in the transition.
