Donald Trump predicted that Elon Musk would not buy Twitter, and promoted his own social media platform, Truth Social, at a rally in Texas on Saturday.
‘I don’t believe he is going to buy Twitter,’ Trump said of Musk, ‘Because you have so many fake accounts with the bots… all of the different things I think it is going to be very interesting.’
Trump’s comments came a day after Elon Musk tweeted that his $44billion deal to buy twitter was ‘on hold,’ and two days after the Tesla founder said that Trump should not run for president in 2024, but that his Twitter ban should be lifted.
‘And he’s got some problems ’cause he bought some stock that he shouldn’t have bought, he’s got a a lot of problems with Twitter. But Twitter has a lot of problems.’
Trump predicted that Elon Musk would not buy Twitter at a rally in Austin, Texas on Saturday
On Thursday, Musk tweeted that though he felt Trump’s Twitter ban should be lifted, he thinks the former president should not run for reelection
Trump then promoted his own Twitter-imitating social media platform, Truth Social.
‘So go to Truth Social. I think you’re going to find that Truth is great. We tell the truth!’ he exclaimed.
‘I think it’s great we got that name,’ Trump continued, ‘We’re driving the radical left crazy. We have something called truth. We don’t say we’re put out a tweet, we say, we put out a truth. They go totally crazy. So go, sign up.’
Trump was speaking at a rally in Austin, Texas, as a part of his ‘American Freedom Tour,’ where a marquee over the stage read ‘It’s time to win back America.’
Trump launched Truth Social in 2021 after he was permanently banned from Twitter on January 8, days after his supporters stormed the Capitol and forced senators into secure rooms as they certified the election results in favor of Biden. On Thursday, Musk tweeted that he felt that ban should be lifted.
On Friday, Musk (center) tweeted that his acquisition of Twitter is ‘on hold.’ Many think the announcement is a ploy to lower his buying price
‘Even though I think a less divisive candidate would be better in 2024, I still think Trump should be restored to Twitter,’ Musk tweeted on Thursday.
Musk said Jack Dorsey, who was CEO of Twitter until November 2021, agreed with him.
‘I do agree,’ Dorsey tweeted, pointing out that he supported bans for sharing content such as child sexual exploitation (CSE), but not generally.
‘There are exceptions (CSE, illegal behaviour, spam or network manipulation, etc), but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don’t work, which I wrote about here after the event (and called for a resilient social media protocol).’
In April, Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen that he would not be returning to Twitter even if Musk allowed him to.
Musk said he was still committed to the $44 billion purchase of the social media company pending an investigation into how many spam accounts are on the site
‘No, I won’t be going back on Twitter,’ Trump told Kernen.
‘I will be on Truth Social within the week. It’s on schedule. We have a lot of people signed up. I like Elon Musk. I like him a lot. He’s an excellent individual. We did a lot for Twitter when I was in the White House. I was disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter. I won’t be going back on Twitter,’ Trump said.
On Friday morning, Musk threw his Twitter takeover bid into chaos by tweeting that the deal was ‘temporarily on hold’ while he investigated the prevalence of fake and spam accounts on the social media site.
‘Whoever thought owning the libs would be cheap never tried to acquire a social media company!’ Musk tweeted on Saturday. He added: ‘At least, that’s what the lib hivemind thinks haha.’
‘Owning libs’ is internet slang used by conservatives that refers to defeating or embarrassing liberals in arguments.
However, one person familiar with the negotiations told the Washington Post: ‘We haven’t seen one iota of evidence that the deal is on hold.’
Trump said in April that even if his ban is lifted, he will not return to Twitter, citing how he was treated in the past
Former President Donald Trump was among many who speculated that Musk put the buyout on hold in the hopes of negotiating a better deal
‘Things continue today just as they were yesterday,’ the person said.
Even Trump, commenting on Truth Social on Friday, suggested that Musk is looking to negotiate a better deal to buy Twitter after agreeing to pay $54.20 per share.
The former US president said the only reason the Tesla CEO had not called off the Twitter deal yet was because of the $1 billion break-up fee.
‘There is no way Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter at such a ridiculous price, especially since realizing it is a company largely based on BOTS or Spam Accounts,’ Trump wrote as he added jabs at the rival social media company.
‘If it weren’t for the ridiculous Billion Dollar breakup fee, Elon would have already been long gone,’ he added.