Did former President Donald Trump send out an October 27, 2022, statement congratulating Tesla owner and billionaire Elon Musk for purchasing Twitter? No, that's not true: Trump's spokesperson said the claim is not real. Trump has commented on the matter only on Truth Social, a social media platform launched by Trump Media & Technology Group.
The claim appeared in an Instagram post on October 27, 2022, with the caption, "BREAKING: President Trump will have his Twitter account reinstated on Monday!" It opened:
- October 27, 2022 -
Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
Congratulations to Elon Musk on his purchase of Twitter.
This is what the Instagram post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Fri Oct 28 15:28:03 2022 UTC)
News media have not received an official emailed statement from Trump about Musk's acquisition of Twitter at the time of writing.
Liz Harrington, Trump's spokesperson, emailed Lead Stories on October 28, 2022, about the claim. The message read:
That is not real. Here is President Trump's latest Truth post on the matter. Thank you.
The Truth Social post (archived here) Harrington linked reads:
TRUTH SOCIAL has become somewhat of a phenomena. Last week it had bigger numbers than all other platforms, including TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest. It also looks and works better to my eye. I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country. Twitter must now work hard to rid itself of all of the bots and fake accounts that have hurt it so badly. It will be much smaller, but better. I LOVE TRUTH!
Here, here and here are more Lead Stories fact checks about Donald Trump and Twitter.
