Former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account has been reactivated.
The account was restored after Twitter CEO and new owner Elon Musk ran a poll on Twitter on Friday night asking the platform’s users if Trump should be reinstated following January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted Saturday night. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Latin for “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
On Saturday night, the final poll results showed 51.8% in favor and 48.2% opposed. There were 15 million votes cast in the survey.
The new owner’s much-anticipated move lays the groundwork for the former president’s return to the social media network, where he was formerly its most influential, albeit controversial, user. His tweets, with almost 90 million followers, frequently influenced the markets, established the news cycle, and drove the agenda in Washington.
Trump has previously stated that he will remain on his platform, Truth Social, rather than rejoin Twitter, but a shift in his strategy might have significant political ramifications. The former president declared that he will run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, hoping to become only the second commander-in-chief to serve two non-consecutive terms.
When asked about Musk’s purchase of Twitter and his future on the platform on Saturday, Trump applauded Musk but questioned if the site would survive its present issues.
“They have a lot of problems,” Trump said in Las Vegas at the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting. “You see what’s going on. It may make it, it may not make it.”
Still, Trump said he liked Musk and “liked that he bought (Twitter.)”
“He’s a character, and I tend to like characters,” the former president said of Musk. “But he’s smart.”
Twitter was important to Trump’s administration throughout his presidency, which benefited the corporation in the form of many hours of user interaction. Twitter frequently adopted a light-handed approach to regulating his account, stating that the then-president should be allowed to express himself freely as a public person.
However, the balance flipped when Trump’s presidency came to a conclusion, and he began to tweet falsehoods claiming electoral fraud. The business began adding caution labels to his tweets to address his erroneous statements ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Following the brawl at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, the platform barred him permanently.
“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.”