Tesla CEO and new Twitter owner Elon Musk published a Twitter poll on Friday evening asking whether he should reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account.
Only five hours after the poll was published, it had already received more than 6 million votes — with 54.4% of respondents saying that Musk should reinstate Trump, and 45.6% saying that he should not allow the former president back on the platform.
Reinstate former President Trump
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
Musk added a second tweet just minutes later with the Latin phrase, “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” which translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
Twitter suspended Trump’s account in 2021 during the January 6 Capitol riot, arguing that the then-president had violated its “civic integrity” policies. The social media company later permanently suspended him from its platform, and other social media websites followed suit.
Trump has since started his own social media platform, Truth Social — which is run by former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) — where he now has around 4.5 million followers.
The former president had nearly 90 million followers on Twitter prior to being banned. Trump has since claimed that Twitter did him a favor by suspending him — promising to never return to the platform and arguing that it was boring.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” he told Fox News in April. “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.”
Democrats and other Trump critics have lashed out at Musk for even considering reinstating Trump on Twitter. Radical progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) responded to Musk’s poll with a sarcastic comment.
“Idk man, last time he was here this platform was used to incite an insurrection, multiple people died, the Vice President of the United States was nearly assassinated, and hundreds were injured but I guess that’s not enough for you to answer the question. Twitter poll it is,” she tweeted.
Meanwhile, Musk has already begun reinstating other accounts of people who had been banned by Twitter before he took over the company, including the conservative satire page The Babylon Bee.
