Trump says he won’t return to Twitter but calls Elon Musk ‘a good man’

Donald Trump has said he will not return to Twitter following the news that Elon Musk has bought the platform the former president was banned from.

Mr Trump made the announcement that he would not rejoin twitter despite the Tesla boss’s $44bn purchase, and instead said he would use his own platform TRUTH Social.

And he told Fox News on Monday that he would formally join the platform within seven days, as he had planned.

“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH. 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,” he said.

The Trump Media & Technology Group social media platform formally launched in March, and after beta-testing has been live on its new cloud services for four days.

“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,” Mr Trump said. “Twitter has bots and fake accounts, and we are doing everything we can.”

And he added: “The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter.”

Mr Trump was suspended from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat following the 6 January US Capitol riot, in which his supporters tried to violently prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

Mr Musk has made free-speech on Twitter a large part of his takeover bid, leading observers to suggest that he will allow Mr Trump and other banned right-wing figures back onto the platform once he has full control.

He said that he welcomed Mr Musk buying Twitter, but claims it is not a rival to his own operation.

“I think it is good. We want liberty and justice and fairness in our country, and the more we can have open, the better,” Mr Trump said.

“But no, I don’t view that as a competition for what I am 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.”