Elon Musk held a poll to ask Twitter whether Donald Trump should be reinstated (Picture: SOPA Images/Shutterstock)
Donald Trump’s Twitter account has been reinstated by Elon Musk nearly two years after the Capitol attack.
It reverses a ban that kept the former president off his favourite social media platform in the wake of the deadly riot on January 6 2021.
Musk made the announcement in the early hours after holding a poll asking Twitter users to click ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on whether Trump should be allowed back.
The ‘yes’ vote won with 51.8% – an eerily familiar majority to the Brexit vote in 2016.
‘The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,’ Musk tweeted, using a Latin phrase meaning ‘the voice of the people, the voice of God’.
It is not yet clear whether Trump would actually return to Twitter.
A constant tweeter before he was banned, the former president has previously said he would not rejoin Twitter even if his account was reinstated.
When will Donald Trump start tweeting? (Picture: AP)
Donald Trump is coming back to a phone near you (Picture: AFP)
Shortly after Musk’s announcement, Trump’s account reappeared with over 1.2 million followers, but it was not following any other users.
Trump’s last tweet was posted on January 9 2021, reading: ‘To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.’
All of his old tweets also reappeared when the account was reinstated – more than 59,000 of them.
Earlier in the evening while addressing a Republican Jewish group meeting in Las Vegas, Trump said he was aware of the poll but he saw ‘a lot of problems at Twitter’.
‘I hear we’re getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it,’ he said.
‘It may make it, it may not make it,’ he added, apparently referring to Twitter’s recent internal upheavals.
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Elon Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account nearly two years after the Capitol attack.
