Former United States President, Donald Trump has reacted after Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, favoured the restoration of his account that got banned in 2021.
Recall that Trump’s account was suspended due to the risk of further incitement of violence over allegations that he spurred his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol Building.
OsunDaily News reports that Elon Musk had announced the result of the poll, in which 15 million Twitter users participated, with 51.8% supporting the restoration of Trump’s account and 48.2% opposing it.
He tweeted: “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” adding “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” a Latin phrase for “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Reacting to plans to restore his account, Trump said he may not return because he sees “a lot of problems at Twitter” and will stick to his own social-media platform, Truth Social.
“I hear we’re getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it,” Bloomberg quoted Trump as telling the Republican Jewish Coalition at a meeting in Las Vegas on Saturday.
This came days after Trump announced he was running for President in 2024.
Checks this morning showed that Trump’s account has been restored and garnered over 9 million followers as of Sunday morning.
The account previously had about 90 million followers before it was brought down.
Capitol Attack
In 2020, after Trump lost the U.S. Presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop the U.S. Congress from counting the electoral college votes to formalise the victory of Joe Biden.
Prior to this, Twitter had warned Trump against misinforming his supporters over his claim that the election was rigged.
The company began flagging some of Trump’s tweets as false, warning that further violations of its policies may result in a ban on the account.
After the Capitol Building attack, the platform banned Trump indefinitely.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said at the time.
“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action.”
