WASHINGTON - Mr Donald Trump’s once-blocked Twitter account has reappeared on the platform, minutes after company owner Elon Musk announced that he was lifting the 22-month suspension on the former president over incitement of violence.

Mr Musk said on Saturday that Mr Trump would be allowed back on Twitter after the tech billionaire ran a poll in which close to 52 per cent of 15 million voters supported the move.

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Mr Musk tweeted of Mr Trump’s account, which was banned last year after a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol on Jan 6, 2021.

But Mr Trump appeared less than keen to return to Twitter. “I don’t see any reason for it,” he said via video when asked by a panel at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting.

He said he would stick with his new platform, Truth Social, which he said had better user engagement than Twitter and was doing “phenomenally well”. Mr Trump is obligated to make his posts available exclusively on Truth Social for six hours before sharing them on other sites, according to a securities filing. He can post to any site immediately if the messages pertain to political messaging, fund raising or get-out-the-vote initiatives.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr Trump, who on Tuesday launched a bid to regain the White House in 2024, praised Mr Musk and said he had always liked him. But Mr Trump also said Twitter suffered from bots, fake accounts and that the problems it faced were “incredible”.

Mr Musk first said in May he planned to reverse the ban on Mr Trump, and the timing of any return by Mr Trump was closely watched – and feared – by many of Twitter’s advertisers. The billionaire has since sought to reassure users and advertisers that such a decision would be made with consideration by a content moderation council composed of people with “widely diverse viewpoints” and that no account reinstatements would happen before the council convened.

He also said Twitter would not reinstate any banned users until there was a “clear process for doing so”. But this past week, he reinstated comedian Kathy Griffin, who had been banned for changing her profile name to “Elon Musk”, which violated his new rule against impersonation without indicating it was a parody account.

There has been no new information about process or the moderation council.

A no-show by Mr Trump could reduce concerns among major advertisers, who are already rattled by Mr Musk’s drastic reshaping of Twitter.

He has halved the workforce and severely cut the company’s trust and safety team, which is responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and harmful content.

These actions and Mr Musk’s tweeting have pushed major companies to halt advertising on the site as they monitor how the platform handles hate speech.

On Saturday, Bloomberg reported Twitter could fire more employees in its sales and partnership divisions, citing unnamed sources, just days after a mass resignation of engineers.

If Mr Trump returned to Twitter, the move would raise questions about his commitment to Truth Social, which launched on Apple’s App Store in February and Google’s Play Store in October. Mr Trump has some 4.57 million followers on Truth Social.

Truth Social has been Mr Trump’s main source of direct communication with his followers since he began posting on the app regularly in May. He has used Truth Social to promote his allies, criticise opponents and defend his reputation amid legal scrutiny from state, congressional and federal investigators. AFP, REUTERS