“i am back!”
With these words, a new chapter begins in the turbulent saga of Donald Trump, 75, and social media: The former president, who was banned from Twitter after his supporters stormed the Capitol, made his first live post since January 2021 Thursday night. .
Trump’s comeback happened with his startup Truth Social. And that’s in the midst of controversy over whether future Twitter chief Elon Musk (50) will allow the Republican to return to the world’s most influential discussion forum.
“I’m back #COVFEFE,” Trump wrote. He wanted to show some humor with her: Because with “Covfefe” he’s repeating the creation of the vague word he dropped in 2017 in the middle of the night as the final point in a new media reprimand. And to this day, no one knows what he meant by this: did he make a complete misspelling or hit the submit button too soon?
The historic salute—which marks the end of his forced hiatus from “social media” for more than a year—is decorated with a picture: Trump standing on the perfectly manicured lawn in front of his luxury resort Mar-a-Lago (Florida) and written quite artificially in a suit and tie on smart phone.
‘Truth Social’ remains too small for Twitter
Trump’s Internet channel Truth is off to a rough start, with users frustrating technical issues in particular. The service remains “David” compared to “Goliath” on Twitter.
You can see it clearly in the numbers: 16 hours after it was posted, Trump’s return message was liked 291,000 times and forwarded 95,000 times. These are not bad values for a platform that has just been established. But the contrast in reach versus Twitter is also clear: Trump had more than 88.7 million “followers” on his realdonaldtrump account at the time of his impeachment. His most shared tweet – when he announced he had Covid-19 in 2020 – was shared 1.2 million times with other users in eight hours.
Compare total numbers:
► “Truth Social” has been downloaded 1.4 million times since its launch in February, according to data site Sensor Tower.
► Twitter, founded in 2006, currently has 229 million subscribers who use the service daily.
A ray of hope for the “truth” at least: With current downloads in the Apple Store, the service ranks number one for social media apps, ahead of Twitter and TikTok.
Amid the controversy over a possible end to Twitter’s ban after Musk’s takeover of the company, Trump has so far shown loyalty to his own platform: “I’m not going back to Twitter, I’m going to stay with the truth,” he recently told Fox News. , when asked about a possible Twitter ban that was lifted by Musk.
Despite the current refusal, the new president gave the new president on Twitter: Trump said Musk would make “improvements,” he was a “good guy.”
“Truth Social” wants to be released to the public
It’s also clear that the former president is initially interested in money: because “Truth Social” is setting up an initial public offering via a special purpose vehicle. It is hoped to generate revenues of 3.5 billion dollars (3.3 billion euros).
But it is also expected that if Trump is serious about his ambitions to run for the Oval Office again in 2024, a presence on Twitter – if Musk eventually allows it – will be essential.
“Twitter is so important to the Trump brand and movement, I’m convinced he wants to get back on Twitter as soon as possible, no matter what he says now,” political expert Jonathan Kristol told BILD.
Musk calls “social truth” “terrible”
On the other hand, Musk could not resist blasphemy in the future competition: “Social Truth” is a “terrible name,” wrote the richest man in the world. It should have been called “trumpet” in English, and “trumpet” in English, but of course a clear blow to the former commander in chief. Musk acknowledged, “The truth” exists only because Twitter has so far censored freedom of expression.
This sounds like an invitation for Trump to come back to Twitter…