Elon Musk reinstates Former President Trump after 52% of 15 million Twitter users voted to bring him back
Nickie Louise
Posted On November 19, 2022
Vox Populi, Vox Dei! Elon Musk has reinstated former President Trump’s account after 52 percent of 15 million Twitter users voted to bring him back to the social platform. Musk launched the poll yesterday. By the time the poll was closed, the former president received 51.8% of the 15 million votes.
A few hours after the poll started, it was getting 1 million votes an hour. By the time the vote closed this evening, Musk said: “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated.”
The people have spoken.
Trump will be reinstated.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei. https://t.co/jmkhFuyfkv
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
A few hours after the poll was launched, Musk tweeted: “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
Meanwhile, the newly reinstated account did not include the 88 million followers of the former president. However, less than an hour after his account was restored, over 1 million users have already followed his account. In a post, one Twitter user tweeted, “Trump’s account is back! Elon Musk delivers.”
Trump’s account is back! Elon Musk delivers. pic.twitter.com/zp8BAcBCoK
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 20, 2022
Back in May, Elon Musk said he would reverse Twitter’s ban on former President Trump. Calling the ban ‘foolish in the extreme,’ Musk said he would also make Twitter’s algorithm open source, and that his goal is to “balance the anger” between the extremes on both sides of the aisle.
It all started on January 6, 2021, with just a couple of days left in his presidency, when Twitter decided to lock the account of former President Trump 12 hours following the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Then a few days later, permanently suspended the personal account of President Donald Trump. In a statement, Twitter said
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter posted Friday.
Before his account was deleted, President Trump had more than 88 million followers and had been retweeted billions of times. Other social media platforms, including Facebook, and Instagram have been quick to issue similar bans on the outgoing president last week after the violence at Capitol Hill.
Update: 10:52 PM EST – Musk said the Twitter engineering team is working on restoring Former President Trump’s 88 million previous followers.
Twitter engineering is working on it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
