Former President Donald Trump reiterated on Monday that he will not return to Twitter despite billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk’s successful acquisition of the social media platform. Trump said he would instead begin using his own platform TRUTH Social.
Trump told Fox News exclusively that while he believes Musk is “a good man” who will improve Twitter, he plans to formally join TRUTH Social within the next week.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump told the outlet. “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.”
In October, Trump announced the Trump Media & Technology Group’s (TMTG) new social media network called “Truth Social,” which was created to “stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech.”
Twitter announced on Monday that the social media giant will be acquired by Musk in an agreement worth roughly $44 billion. After the transaction is completed, Twitter will be converted into a private company. Despite the changes coming to Twitter, Trump said he doesn’t view it as competition for his own platform.
“I think it is good. We want liberty and justice and fairness in our country, and the more we can have open, the better,” 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,” he continued. “But I want everybody to come over to TRUTH—conservatives, liberals, whatever.”
Trump argued that Twitter “became very boring because conservatives were thrown off or got off the platform when I left.”
“It became boring because there was no interaction,” Trump added. “The interaction on TRUTH has been amazing. We want everybody.”
“TRUTH Social will be a voice for me,” he concluded. “And that’s something nobody else can get.”
In early January, Twitter permanently suspended then-President Trump’s account due to, “the risk of further incitement of violence.”
The decision to permanently ban Trump came days after the Jan. 6, 2021, protest turned violent on Capitol Hill, prompting an evacuation and lockdown in the Capitol building.
In August, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found that the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol was not organized by pro-Donald Trump groups as part of a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.