Devin Nunes says Trump won’t go back to Twitter if Musk buys it claiming his much mocked Truth Social has better engagement

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Supporters of former president Donald Trump who are cheering Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter as a sign that the ex-president’s permanent ban from the platform may be lifted under new ownership will be disappointed to hear that he has no plans to return to the social network that helped fuel his unprecedented rise to the presidency.

According to ex-California representative Devin Nunes — who resigned from Congress to run Mr Trump’s own “Truth Social” platform — the twice-impeached ex-president isn’t so keen on reviving the Twitter account he used to bully world leaders, fire aides, and urge supporters to storm the Capitol while falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Speaking to Trump-friendly Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo, Mr Nunes said Mr Trump “really doesn’t have an interest in going on Twitter” and most likely wouldn’t want to return if the ban imposed on him following the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol is lifted.

Mr Nunes, who joined Trump Media and Technology Group as CEO after resigning from Congress in January, said he sees Twitter as “nothing but a PR wire” until someone “get[s] in there … and wipe[s] out everything that's been happening there for the last several years” — a reference to Twitter’s efforts to rein in misinformation and eliminate hate speech and harassment on the platform, efforts that have been falsely described as censorship by conservatives.

“It's got a global footprint, but there's just nobody there,” said Mr Nunes, who added that Mr Trump’s platform — which the ex-president does not use at all — has “more engagement,” though he declined to cite any metrics to support that claim.