The former president has rejoined the social network that was once his preferred method for interacting with the nation, nine months after Elon Musk restored Donald Trump’s account there. After months of turmoil, the firm now known as X may be reaching a turning point with the return of Trump, who used to be one of the site’s most visible, albeit controversial, users. Trump, who is the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race and has close to 87 million followers, may draw in a broad audience.
However, it might also bring along a fresh set of difficulties for the social network, particularly for its efforts to restore its advertising business if Trump chooses to resume publishing frequently on the site at all.
Trump published on Twitter for the first time on Thursday night since he was suspended in January 2021 for breaking the social media site’s policies against glorifying violence in the wake of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. He surrendered in Georgia on more than a dozen charges related to his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, and on Thursday, he uploaded a picture of his mug photograph, the first one in US history. Also sent was a link to a fundraising effort.
Musk, the owner of X, who has been enticing prominent celebrities and politicians to post on the site in an effort to increase user numbers, appeared to welcome Trump’s return. Trump’s X post was shared with the caption “Next-level.”
In light of the tremendous competition the platform is facing, it might greatly benefit if Trump decides to resume posting frequently on X. Additionally, some advertisers have been miffed by Musk’s changes at the company, which have hurt X’s primary business.
When he was president, Trump frequently impacted the markets, controlled the news cycle, and set the agenda in Washington. This was advantageous to the company because it resulted in endless hours of user interaction, and it almost surely will again. Trump has largely stayed on his own platform, Truth Social, ever since he was banned from numerous popular social networks in early 2021, but X would provide him with a wider audience when he contends for the Republican nomination in 2024.
According to D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte, Trump’s return “should have a positive impact on [X’s] engagement at a time when it needs it,” he wrote in an email to CNN on Friday.
(It’s unclear how Musk, who has frequently been the center of attention for X since he took control in part due to his own policy choices, would feel about sharing the limelight.)
It’s possible that X may use this interaction as a selling point when trying to entice advertisers back to the site. Trump’s comeback, however, may also cause new worries for advertisers, some of whom have cut their investment on the platform out of concern that their advertisements may appear alongside debatable or possibly offensive information as a result of Musk’s lowered standards for content management.
