Donald Trump Has Been Reinstated on Twitter by Elon Musk

The official Twitter account of former United States President Donald Trump has been reinstated by Elon Musk.

The decision to bring Trump back to Twitter was made official following a poll posted by Musk on November 18 that asked if he should “reinstate former President Trump.” After over 15 million votes, 51.8% of the voters said yes, he should return.

After the poll ended, Musk tweeted, “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated, Vox Populi, Vox Dei.” For those unfamiliar, Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a Latin phrase that roughly translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of god.”

Twitter, well before Musk bought the company for $44 billion, permanently banned Trump’s Twitter account shortly after the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, by Trump supporters.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter wrote in a blog.

Twitter cited two tweets from Trump on January 8, 2021, that led to the decision, and they are as follows;

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” Trump wrote. “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

Shortly after, he made his final Tweet – “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

“Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks,” Twitter wrote. “After assessing the language in these Tweets against our Glorification of Violence policy, we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.”

Trump was also banned on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and he moved over to another platform called Parler, which had been particularly popular with his supporters. However, the platform was quickly removed from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store as it hadn’t taken adequate measures to “address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety.”

On November 18, Musk announced a new Twitter policy – “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.” This means “negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”

In the same thread, he announced that Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson, and Babylon Bee would be reinstated on Twitter, but a decision on Trump had not been made yet. Now, it has.

For more on the ongoing saga following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, be sure to check out our look at the complete timeline of the news so far.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.