From an article published April 25, 2022..

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump will not return to Twitter, even as Elon Musk purchases the social media company and reinstates his account, instead using his own TRUTH Social as the sole platform for his voice.

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"I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH," Trump told Fox News. "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."

If you're a Twitter shareholder, congratulations. So sorry, though, if you bought stock in DWAC. Trump is the only reason that anybody uses Truth Social. He started it because he was kicked off Twitter. Now that Musk owns Twitter and says he may offer a way for banned people to be reinstated, I predict that Trump will abandon his investors and make Truth Social worthless. Twitter is an addiction he won't be able to resist.

It's up to Musk, of course. Does he want to knock out a competitor and increase the popularity of his newly acquired company, which reinstating Trump would do? Or does he want to please uptight advertisers, who would be uncomfortable with Trump's return to social media?..

Mr. Musk said this spring that as owner of Twitter he would reinstate former President Donald Trump's account, which the platform suspended indefinitely after linking Mr. Trump's comments to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. That would be a red line for some brands, said Kieley Taylor, global head of partnerships at GroupM, a leading ad-buying agency that represents blue-chip brands.

About a dozen of GroupM's clients, which own an array of well-known consumer brands, have told the agency to pause all their ads on Twitter if Mr. Trump's account is reinstated, Ms. Taylor said. Others are in wait-and-see mode. Ms. Taylor said she expects to hear from many more clients if Mr. Trump's account returns.

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Musk posted a message on Twitter to advertisers, saying that it is important that Twitter allow a "wide range of beliefs to be debated," while preventing Twitter from becoming a "free-for-all hellscape." There's a lot of acreage between those points.


Trump needs to find a way to returning to Twitter without harming his investors and without suffering the ignominy of having another of his companies go bankrupt. Normally, the answer would be to talk Musk into buying Truth Social, even if at a big discount. But since Trump made blistering comments about Musk on Truth Social, which you probably missed, and at public rallies over the summer, which you probably heard about, Musk may not feel at all inclined to bail Trump out.

I'm not even going to touch the SEC investigations -- plural -- around possible issues of fraud.



There are too many moving pieces to get a sense of how the change in ownership of Twitter will affect politics.