President Donald Trump spoke with Fox News anchors and told them that he will not return to Twitter, regardless of a successful Twitter acquisition by Elon Musk. Trump gave lots of praise to the idea that Musk could successfully buy the social media giant, but he remarked: “The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter.”
Trump says that he is going to begin posting on his own social media platform, Truth, which was highly anticipated and finally available for download in March 2022. While the basis of Truth Social grows daily, when it announced that Twitter had accepted Musk’s offer, Truth Social stock dipped.
Trump added that he will begin posting on Truth Social within the next week. Trump has a Truth profile; currently, he has 1.51 million followers on the platform. He has yet to really post anything other than one “Truth” from February, in which he wrote: “Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!”
Trump told Fox News on Monday: “I am not going on Twitter . . .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.”
Truth Social is still growing in its own right. Although a Beta launch was conducted at the end of February, the platform had to work out some bugs and other issues. Currently, Truth Social is on a cloud service (and has been since late last week).
Former Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA), left his seat in the United States Congress to take the role of Chief Executive Officer for Truth Social. Nunes was instrumental in investigating the allegations of Russian collusion against President Trump. He was one of the first to say that the allegations were false, and he also carried out a thorough investigation, even in the face of critics.
Nunes also has an account on Truth Social, and he interacts with the public regularly, particularly when providing updates about beta testing or any issues users might be experiencing.
Trump spoke with Fox News regarding the high rate of interest in Truth Social: “We’re taking in millions of people, and what we’re finding is that the response on TRUTH is much better than being on Twitter. Twitter has bots and fake accounts, and we are doing everything we can (to prevent that).”
After the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, President Trump was banned from multiple social media platforms, including Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. Twitter in particular gave reasoning that Trump’s tweets were “inflammatory” and “warned of the risk of further incitement of violence.” However, President Trump’s popularity seems to be growing. He continues to speak and hold rallies across the nation. He has been on the campaign stump ahead of mid-term primaries. He’s also provided endorsements for several candidates.
Trump was asked if he believed Twitter under the leadership of Elon Musk would be competition for TRUTH Social, Trump replied, “(I) feel it would be a positive development in the social media space,” but he doesn’t view it as competition. Trump agreed that both he and Musk have similar goals – liberty, justice and fairness.
Trump also told Fox News that he wanted both liberals and conservatives to have a voice on Truth Social. He also pointed out that Twitter “became boring” after he was suspended from the platform. Twitter’s stock did go up during Trump’s years in the White House; it fell once they suspended his account.
Trump mentioned that Twitter became boring because there was no “interaction.”
Perhaps Elon Musk understands as well as President Trump that critical thinking involves being able to discuss varying viewpoints without attacking one another or silencing those we don’t agree with, no matter what their political affiliation.
President Trump ending his comments by saying that Truth Social would be a voice for himself, “and that’s something nobody else can get.”
