Shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Twitter (TWTR) permanently suspended former President Donald Trump's account. The social media giant cited tweets from Trump that violated one of its policies.
"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them--specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter--we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," the company said.
But things may change soon.
Soon after Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk publicly discussed buying Twitter last April, he said he was an advocate of free speech and suggested he would consider reinstating Trump's account.
Questions Now That the Deal is Complete
When the deal for Twitter was closed on Oct. 27, it wasn't long before speculation about Trump's account began. Would Musk really reinstate it? If so, when? How would advertisers react?
Regarding the latter, a bit of information was quickly reported.
"If Elon Musk reinstates former President Donald Trump's Twitter account after completing a takeover of the company, several companies plan to suspend ad spending on the platform, a top ad buyer said per WSJ," posted @unusual_whales.
About a dozen advertisers asked ad-buyer GroupM for a hiatus of their ads on Twitter in the event the former president's account was reactivated, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some of its other clients have not committed to a course of action.
“That doesn’t mean that we won’t be entertaining lots of emails and phone calls as soon as a transaction goes through,” said Kieley Taylor, global head of partnerships for GroupM, via the Journal. “I anticipate we’ll be busy.”
"We have two of the top five global media agencies and more than $60 billion in annual media spend," GroupM says on its Website. "We provide access and scale everywhere our clients do business. Intelligent and imaginative, we create, integrate and scale technology-enabled services with premium partners, including Google, Meta, Amazon and more."
Trump, for his part, has said he would not rejoin Twitter even if given the opportunity. So questions remain. Will his account be reactivated, and will he start tweeting again if it is?
Additionally, the former Republican President has his own social network, Truth Social, which is a competitor to Twitter.
