Elon Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account the day after a majority of voters responded “Yes” to his poll asking if the former president should be allowed back on the platform.
“The people have spoken,” Musk wrote on Saturday evening. “Trump will be reinstated. He added the Latin phrase “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” which translates to “The voice of the people (is) the voice of God.”
More than 15 million users voted in the Nov. 18 poll, with 51.8% of respondents saying, “Yes” Trump should be allowed back on Twitter, while 48.2% said, “No.”
Trump was kicked off the platform following the insurrection he incited against the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His last tweet before the suspension, published on Jan. 8, read “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
Back in May, when Musk was stuck in legal gridlock with the company, he stated plans to reinstate Trump’s account if the deal closed. The billionaire called the ban “a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme.”
“I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” he said at the time. “I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
In his address to the Financial Times conference, Musk pointed to the fact that after Twitter became the first social media platform to ban Trump, he went on to found his own network, Truth Social.
After Musk completed the $44 billion deal, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was “very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country.”
However, last month, Trump indicated that he would not rejoin should his account be reinstated. “Last week [Truth Social] had bigger numbers than all other platforms, including TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest,” his statement continued. “It also looks and works better to my eye.”
Whether or not Trump will stick to his word remains to be seen. His staunchest supporters – including Kyle Rittenhouse, Lauren Boebert and Candace Owens – have wasted no time welcoming him back.
