Donald Trump to return to Twitter? Elon Musk's free speech stance raises possibilities
FirstpostThe Tesla chief’s deal to acquire Twitter sets him up to revisit the ban on the former president, a move that could roil US politics as the country marches towards the 2024 presidential race Four days after Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump’s account on January 8, 2021, the then-US president’s son pleaded with entrepreneur Elon Musk to employ his “brilliance” to launch a social media platform that “isn’t biased” to crush the competition. Trump has said he wouldn’t return to Twitter even if offered, telling Fox News on Monday he would instead stay on his fledgling Truth Social platform, which has struggled to fully get off the ground. New York Times columnist Kara Swisher urged readers to ready themselves for a shift from the “over-one-year-long respite from Trumpy Twitter.” Twitter executives “would have been under enormous pressure to reconsider the ban” even if the company had not been acquired by Musk, said Swisher, who predicted the deal will “probably run Truth Social” and other nascent sites “out of business.” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, predicted Trump would again have an outsized presence if he rejoined Twitter. “It’s going to inject Trump back into the Republican mainstream,” said Sabato, who calls Trump “the worst thing to happen to American Democracy in my lifetime.” Sabato thinks Trump will likely use Twitter to overshadow other politicians, including current President Joe Biden, “who doesn’t fill the news hole” as Trump did.