Trump SPAC Digital World jumped 5% in premarket trading after Trump said that he would stay off Twitter even if ban lifted.
Donald Trump said he doesn’t plan to return to Twitter even if Elon Musk lifts the former president’s lifetime ban.
Musk, the billionaire Tesla Inc. chief executive officer, agreed to buy Twitter Inc. for $44 billion and take the 16-year-old social networking platform private, the company announced on Monday.
There has been speculation that Musk could lift the permanent ban that Twitter imposed on Trump’s account last year after a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. But Trump told Fox News that he will start using his own Truth Social platform instead of Twitter during the next week.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump told Fox News. “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.”
A Trump spokesman didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Twitter, citing rules against glorifying violence, permanently banned Trump’s account in January 2021 after he encouraged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol in what became a deadly attempt to stop the counting of Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden. Trump also remains banned from Meta Platform Inc.’s Facebook.
Trump told Fox News that Truth Social will be “a platform for my voice and for my supporters.” He said he doesn’t think Twitter owned by Musk would be competition for Truth Social. “We want liberty and justice and fairness in our country, and the more we can have open, the better.”