Elon Musk dismisses rumors that Trump pushed him to buy Twitter

Elon Musk on Friday vehemently denied a statement by the head of the new social network, former President Donald Trump, that Trump encouraged Musk’s offer to buy Twitter.

“That’s a lie,” Musk wrote in response to New York Post article about this announcement by Trump Media & Technology Group CEO Devin Nunez.

“I had no direct or indirect communication with Trump, who publicly stated that he would be exclusively on Truth Social,” Musk, head of Tesla and SpaceX, wrote.

Nunes, during a televised appearance on Fox Business, said that Trump’s social media app, Truth Social, was “all behind” Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter and make it private with a $44 billion offer – a claim somewhat surprising since Twitter is a competitor True Social.

“President Trump basically before Elon Musk bought it actually said to go buy it because you know the purpose of our company is actually to build a community where people are in family and safe environment,” said Nunez, a former Republican Congressman from California during the speech.

Twitter banned Trump, who was an obsessive messaging app user, in January 2021 for what the company said was “the risk of further inciting violence.”

The ban follows the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot staged by a mob of Trump supporters who thwarted the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s election.

Last fall, Trump announced plans to launch Truth Social as a competitor to Twitter and said his social network would go public through a deal with so-called blanche check company Digital World Acquisition Corp.

On April 25, Twitter accepted Musk’s offer to buy the company, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

Nunes suggested during an interview with Fox Business that Trump’s call for Musk to buy Twitter is consistent with Truth Social’s mission.

“That’s why we called on Elon Musk to buy it, because someone has to keep fighting these tech tyrants,” Nunes said. “Donald Trump wanted to make sure Americans got the vote back and the internet was open, and that’s what we’re doing.”

“And so people like Elon Musk do what he does, and you know we are definitely for it,” Nunes said.

In late April, Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen that he would not return to Twitter even if Musk took charge and lifted the ban on him.

“No, I won’t be back on Twitter again,” said Trump, who had almost 90 million Twitter followers before the ban.

“I’ll be on Truth Social for a week. It’s on schedule. We have a lot of people signed up,” Trump said.

“I like Elon Musk. I really like him. He is a great person. We did a lot for Twitter when I was in the White House. I was disappointed with the way I was treated on Twitter. on Twitter,” he said.

The statistics show that Trump, who as president averaged more than eight tweets per day in the second half of 2017 and the first half of 2018, has steadily increased that average in subsequent years. He ended up posting an average of 34 tweets per day over the last six months of his tenure before being banned.

On Truth Social, as of Friday, Trump has posted a so-called “Truth” or “ReTruthed” message from another user less than 30 times in the past two months. Almost all of these messages were made in the past week.