Trump says he won't return to Twitter despite Elon Musk buying it - but no one believes him

Former President Donald Trump said that he wouldn't be returning to Twitter and would use his platform, TRUTH Social after Elon Musk bought it - but no-one believed him.

On Monday (25 April), the Tesla and SpaceX CEO purchased the social media platform for a whopping $44bn after people speculated that he would go ahead and purchase it.

The former commander-in-chief spoke to Fox News on Monday and said he would formally join his own TRUTH Social over the next week, all as planned.

"I am not going on Twitter. I am going to stay on TRUTH," Trump told the outlet. "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."

The Trump Media & Technology Group social media platform, TRUTH Social, was formally launched last month and has been running under its brand-new cloud services for four days.

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This occurred after being beta-tested in February. Former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif) is the company's CEO.

"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," Trump said.

Trump was permanently banned from major social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat after the insurrection of Capitol Hill on January 6.

Twitter considered many of his tweets to be connected to the violent protests and warned of his account further risking "the incitement of violence."

When Trump was asked whether or not a Musk-owned Twitter would be competition for TRUTH, he said that he believes it would be a positive occurrence in the social media space, but other than that, he doesn't view it as "competition" for what he's doing.

"This is a platform for my voice. TRUTH is a platform for my voice and for my supporters," Trump said. "But I want everybody to come over to TRUTH—conservatives, liberals, whatever," he said.

Trump also said that Twitter became "boring" for him "because conservatives were thrown off or got off the platform when I left."

He also wouldn't tell Fox News if he had been in contact with Musk.

People took to Twitter to share how they still believe Trump would still join Twitter, even if it's down the line.

Fox News further said that a source indicated that Trump and Musk have a good relationship and are friendly with one another.

The source also referenced Trump coming to Musk's defense in 2018 after the billionaire was charged with securities fraud over misleading tweets about the potential transaction to take Tesla private.

Musk took to Twitter on Monday and wrote: "I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means."

On the other hand, Trump Media &Technology Group CEO Devin Nunes told Fox News that TRUTH Social has an "uncancellable architecture" and is "lightning-quick."

"What President Trump started with this company really is a movement that has led us to a point where now Elon Musk is saying, hey, this is a problem. "And we're glad he is saying it is a problem," Nunes said.

Content moderation has come under scrutiny from critics on the right scrutinised the topic of content moderation. They argued that tech giants shouldn't benefit from protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if they censor certain viewpoints.

The provision was integral to the rise of today's social media giants by allowing not only Internet service providers –­ but also things such as Google, Twitter, YouTube, and many others – to be protected from liability from content posted on their platforms by third parties, in most cases.

In October 2021, TMTG first launched. Last month, the company said that the partner had reached agreements for $1bn in capital from institutional investors.

TMTG's ultimate goal is to become a publicly listed company through a merger with the publicly traded Digital World Acquisition Corp.

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