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Donald Trump hasn't really tweeted since 2021 — even though Elon Musk unlocked his account and has now reportedly pledged $45 million a month toward getting him elected.
It's kind of funny if you think about it: the richest man in the world, super thirsty for a former president to post — please, just post anything! — on the troubled Twitter, err X. But Trump is so far refusing.
Of course, there's a reason Trump hasn't tweeted since 2021, save for a picture of his mugshot and a link to his website last August. It's because of his deal with Truth Social, the platform owned by his Trump Media & Technology Group — Ticker symbol DJT. (He has a 60% share.)
That deal says any of his posts have to be exclusive to Truth Social for six hours before they can be posted elsewhere. Sure, he could post the same thing to X hours after he posts to Truth, but he just hasn't.
This is even after Musk said he "fully" endorsed Trump after the past weekend's heinous shooting. And after Musk reportedly has pledged about $45 million a month to a new Trump-focused super political action committee.
The endorsement and donation aren't even the first big things Musk has done for Trump: Soon after taking over Twitter, one of the first things he did was reinstate Trump's Twitter account, which previous owners banned after the January 6 insurrection. Musk took a poll of users and announced, "The people have spoken," when bringing back the former president.
The people have spoken.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
Trump will be reinstated.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei. https://t.co/jmkhFuyfkv
Certainly, Musk would love to have Trump once again posting on X. Trump, when he tweeted, was a juggernaut of attention (for better or worse — I make no claims here that Trump's tweets were "good"). Having Trump tweeting again would be a boon for X. His tweets would attract media hype and bring users to the service.
And X CEO Linda Yaccarino loves nothing more than to hype up how exciting X is and how engaged its audience is. It's hard to imagine she wouldn't be excited to have the most notable tweeter going hard again.
And yet … Trump still won't tweet.
Already over 2 BILLION impressions around the debate last night. X remains on ????!
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) June 28, 2024
Trump hasn't posted to Instagram or Facebook, either, even though Meta — which had also banned Trump's accounts after January 6, reinstated them in 2023. But that might make Meta perfectly happy, since it's less hassle for them to deal with possible content moderation issues.
But here's why Trump might also be reticent to post — anywhere aside from Truth Social: Trump's deal with the company is highly lucrative. Trump Media & Technology went public via SPAC back in May. The stock has been volatile, but it's up more than 178% over the past year and its market cap is over $7 billion — and Trump owns over 60%, making his stake around $4 billion.
It's hard to imagine Trump not feeling the need to tweet. And it is even harder to imagine Trump playing by the rules and following a contract.
But indeed — for $4 billion, he's apparently willing to play by the rules.
For Musk, that's gotta sting.
To be sure, Musk's endorsement and donation toward his reelection efforts obviously aren't an attempt to get Trump to tweet. Musk has other significant business interests where he'd prefer Trump as president: Tesla in China, government contracts for SpaceX, etc. He also probably just simply believes in Trump's message. I've asked for comment from PR people for both men.
But you gotta admit: It is pretty funny that Musk is really doing everything he can to appear to suck up to Trump, and Trump isn't doing the one thing that might make Musk very happy: tweeting.
