Friends and allies of Donald Trump expect the former president to return to Twitter before the 2024 election, Axios reported.
Trump hasn't tweeted in nearly two and a half years, since he was banned following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the Capitol. Still, he has roughly 87 million followers on the social media platform.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk reinstated Trump last November, but the former president has opted to remain on Truth Social, of which he is a majority owner. He has 5 million followers there.
An Axios source said Trump owns 90% of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the umbrella group for Truth Social. The value of TMTG and Truth Social could decline if the former president returned to Twitter and favored it over Truth Social, according to analysts.
Nevertheless, Axios reported Wednesday that people close to Trump's team think he'll eventually get back on Twitter as he campaigns for the 2024 Republican nomination amid his several legal issues.
"President Trump needs to make Twitter great again. I want him to get back on before the presidential campaign heats up," Mike Davis, founder of conservative legal group The Article III Project, told Axios.
"From a business perspective, it's very smart he's only on Truth. From a political perspective, he needs to be on Twitter."
Trump has used Truth Social to comment on his legal challenges, as well as using "reTruths" to share posts from allies in Congress, favorable polling and clips from conservative networks.
One person close to Trump told Axios that the former president sends less than half of the Truth Social posts on his own, while others are dictated or are written by senior campaign advisers Dan Scavino and Jason Miller, or communications director Steven Cheung.
Trump has been very active on Truth Social this month, most notably when he preempted the Justice Department's announcement that he was being charged in the classified documents case.
Axios reported that Trump considered returning to Twitter at the end of the House Jan. 6 select committee's hearings in December 2022. The former president's team even drafted possible tweets to post before he decided to stay on Truth Social.
Returning to Twitter could mean Trump would be subject to an agreement that requires him to post on Truth Social at least six hours before posting on another platform, according to a regulatory filing from Digital World Acquisition Group.
A proposed TMTG merger with Digital World Acquisition Group is in limbo because of government investigations into whether TMTG violated money laundering regulations, Axios reported.
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