John Jefferson
Donald Trump has seemingly returned to X, previously known as Twitter, with a campaign ad.
The video was initially posted in a way that allowed it to be hidden from visitors to the former president’s profile, and only pushed into users’ news feeds.
Mr Trump was once known as perhaps Twitter’s most high profile and controversial users. Throughout his presidency, he used to the site to make announcements about his government and the US.
But in January, 2021, in the wake of riots at the US Capitol, Mr Trump was banned from the site. Twitter said then that it was “permanently” suspending his account because of the threat of further violence, in line with decisions at other platforms suchFacebook.
Shortly after Elon Musk took over Twitter, in late 2022, Mr Trump’s account was reinstated. But in the time since, Mr Trump had taken to using his own Truth Social platform, and he has only posted one post since.
That tweet, which included a picture of his own mugshot after surrendering at a jail over charges of trying to overturn his election loss, was posted in August last year. He has been silent since.
Now Mr Trump has returned to the site with a more generic campaign ad.
Initially, Mr Trump’s account had posted that video as an ad. That meant that it can be pushed to users without appearing on his profile.
Other accounts, such as Apple’s official corporate profile, have used that same technique on X. But Mr Trump’s unusual tweet led to questions over whether he was fully returning to the platform.
Now he has shared the tweet publicly – gaining tens of thousands of retweets in a matter of minutes.
The post came just hours before Mr Trump was due to conduct an interview with Mr Musk, which will be live-streamed on the latter’s X platform.
Despite the apparent return to X, Mr Trump continues to post actively on Truth Social, sharing multiple posts each hour. That included one post sharing news of his interview with Mr Musk, shared only with the message “ENJOY!”
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