The reactivation of Donald Trump's Twitter account, a symbolic decision
The former US president, banned from the social network after the violent assault on the Capitol in January 2021, however, assures that he does not want to make his return there.
"The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei. "This is how Elon Musk justified, on Sunday, November 20, the decision to reactivate the Twitter account of the former US president, suspended since January 2021. The new CEO of the social network had, a few hours earlier, launched an online poll, which received 115 million votes, including a small majority to bring Donald Trump back: 51.8% in favor, 48.2% against.
The former president's account was suspended after his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, causing riots and multiple deaths. The management of the social network had considered that Mr. Trump, by contesting in particular his defeat and the victory of Joe Biden, had encouraged the protesters. "After reviewing the content of recent tweets published by the @realDonaldTrump account and in view of the current context, we have taken the decision to suspend this account in order to limit the risks of incitement to violence," Twitter had explained. At the time, Donald Trump was the social network's first exponentially growing user with 88 million subscribers messages and provocations – a role and a posture since taken over in part by Mr. Musk.
The reinstatement of Donald Trump's account by the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, a self-proclaimed supporter of "absolute freedom of expression", has an important symbolic significance. Especially with the defeated former president just announcing that he wants to run against Joe Biden again in 2024.
No short term consequences
However, this decision has no short-term impact. And indeed, Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he does not want to return to Twitter: "I don't see any reason to do this," he emphasized during a video intervention on Saturday at a rally of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, Nevada. While greeting Elon Musk - "I love him . He is a character from hell and I like the character from hell" -, he said that he prefers to stay on Truth Social. This social network, designed as a conservative and Republican "alternative" to Twitter and Facebook, offers Donald Trump only a small audience - 4.18 million Subscribers for October. But he's the CEO of the company that created Truth Social, and he signed a deal with them that allows him to publish his own posts within 6 hours, with a few exceptions. That hasn't stopped Elon Musk from wanting the former president to break away from Truth Social and join Twitter, portrayed in a schoolboy and vulgar tweet as a woman offering herself to hesitant monks whose secrets entrepreneurs have.
