LOS ANGELES (AP) — Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump's account on Twitter on Saturday, reversing a ban that has kept the former president off the social media site since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden's election victory.
Musk made the announcement in the evening after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes†or “no†on whether Trump's account should be restored. The “yes†vote won, with 51.8%.
"The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei," Musk tweeted, using a Latin phrase meaning "the voice of the people, the voice of God."
Shortly afterward Trump's account, which had earlier appeared as suspended, reappeared on the platform complete with his former tweets, more than 59,000 of them. However his followers were gone, at least initially.
People are also reading…
It is not clear whether Trump would actually return to Twitter. An irrepressible tweeter before he was banned, Trump has said in the past that he would not rejoin even if his account was reinstated. He has been relying on his own, much smaller social media site, Truth Social, which he launched after being blocked from Twitter.

On Saturday, during a video speech to a Republican Jewish group meeting in Las Vegas, Trump said that he was aware of Musk's poll but that he saw "a lot of problems at Twitter," according to Bloomberg.
"I hear we're getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don't see it because I don't see any reason for it," Trump was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. "It may make it, it may not make it," he added, apparently referring to Twitter's recent internal upheavals.
The prospect of restoring Trump's presence to the platform follows Musk's purchase last month of Twitter — an acquisition that has fanned widespread concern that the billionaire owner will allow purveyors of lies and misinformation to flourish on the site. Musk has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive of freewheeling speech.
His efforts to reshape the site have been both swift and chaotic. Musk has fired many of the company's 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors who are responsible for content moderation and other crucial responsibilities. His demand that remaining employees pledge to "extremely hardcore" work triggered a wave of resignations, including hundreds of software engineers.
Users have reported seeing increased spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages, among other glitches, in the aftermath of the mass layoffs and worker exodus. Some programmers who were fired or resigned this week warned that Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.
, which ran for 24 hours before ending Saturday evening, concluded with 51.2% of more than 15 million votes favoring the restoration of Trump's Twitter' account. It comes four days after Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency in 2024.
Trump lost his access to Twitter two days after his supporters stormed the Capitol, soon after the former president had exhorted them to "fight like hell." Twitter dropped his account after Trump wrote a pair of tweets that the company said cast further doubts on the legitimacy of the presidential election and raised risks for the Biden presidential inauguration.
After the Jan. 6 attack, Trump was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Meta Platforms, and Snapchat. His ability to post videos to his YouTube channel was also suspended. Facebook is set to reconsider Trump's account suspension in January.
Throughout his tenure as president, Trump's use of social media posed a significant challenge to major social media platforms that sought to balance the public's interest in hearing from public officials with worries about misinformation, bigotry, harassment and incitement of violence.
But in a speech at an auto conference in May, Musk asserted that Twitter's ban of Trump was a "morally bad decision" and "foolish in the extreme."
Earlier this month, Musk, who completed the $44 billion takeover of Twitter in late October, declared that the company wouldn't let anyone who had been kicked off the site return until Twitter had established procedures on how to do so, including forming a "content moderation council."
On Friday, Musk tweeted that the suspended Twitter accounts for the comedian Kathy Griffin, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and the conservative Christian news satire website Babylon Bee had been reinstated. He added that a decision on Trump had not yet been made. He also responded "no" when someone on Twitter asked him to reinstate the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' account.
In a tweet Friday, the Tesla CEO described the company's new content policy as "freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach."
He explained that a tweet deemed to be "negative" or to include "hate" would be allowed on the site but would be visible only to users who specifically searched for it. Such tweets also would be "demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter," Musk said.
Photos: Elon Musk through the years

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2000 file photo, PayPal Chief Executive Officer Peter Thiel, left, and founder Elon Musk, right, pose with the PayPal logo at corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2008 file photo, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk stands in front a Tesla sports car at a Tesla showroom in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)

FILE - In this March 26, 2009 file photo, Tesla Motors CEO, Chairman and Product Architect Elon Musk speaks at the unveiling of the Tesla Model S all-electric 5-door sedan, in Hawthorne, Calif., Thursday, March 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

In this July 21, 2009 photo, shows Tesla CEO Elon Musk talking about the lawsuit at Tesla headquarters in San Carlos, Calif., Tuesday, July 21, 2009. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

In this Tuesday, July 21, 2009 photo, Tesla CEO Elon Musk poses at Tesla headquarters in San Carlos, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

President Barack Obama walks to look at the Flacon 9 launch vehicle with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at Kennedy Space Center Thursday, April 15, 2010.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Calif. Gov., Arnold Schwarzenegger, right, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, left, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, center, at Tesla headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., Thursday, May 20, 2010. Tesla and Toyota officials announce partnership. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, poses with a Tesla car in front of Nasdaq following the electric automaker’s initial public offering, Tuesday, June, 29, 2010, in New York. The company plans to trade on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker "TSLA." (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Elon Musk, center, CEO of Tesla Motors, raises his hand at the Nasdaq opening bell to celebrate the electric automaker’s initial public offering, Tuesday, June, 29, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Elon Musk, co-founder, chief executive and product architect of Tesla Motors, poses at the premiere of the documentary film "Revenge of the Electric Car," Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, at Tesla Motors in Los Angeles. The film is director Chris Paine's follow-up to his 2006 documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk walks in a procession after delivering the commencement speech for Caltech graduates in Pasadena, Calif. Friday, June 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gives the opening keynote at the SXSW Interactive Festival on Saturday, March 9, 2013 in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Jack Plunkett)

FILE - In this May 29, 2014 file photo, Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, introduces the SpaceX Dragon V2 spaceship at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., introduces the Model X car at the company's headquarters Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2015, in Fremont, Calif. Musk said the Model X sets a new bar for automotive engineering, with unique features like rear falcon-wing doors, which open upward, and a driver's door that opens on approach and closes itself when the driver is inside. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Elon Musk, CEO & Chief Product Architect of Tesla Moters, attends the premiere of "Racing Extinction" during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)

SpaceX founder Elon Musk speaks during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016. In a receptive audience full of space buffs, Musk said he envisions 1,000 passenger ships flying en masse to Mars, 'Battlestar Galactica' style. He calls it the Mars Colonial fleet, and he says it could become reality within a century. Musk's goal is to establish a full-fledged city on Mars and thereby make humans a multi-planetary species. (AP Photo/Refugio Ruiz)

President Donald Trump talks with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, center, and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon during a meeting with business leaders in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Grimes, left, and Elon Musk attend The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition on Monday, May 7, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk speaks after announcing Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa as the first private passenger on a trip around the moon, Monday, Sept. 17, 2018, in Hawthorne, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Elon Musk, co-founder and chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., speaks during an unveiling event for the Boring Co. Hawthorne test tunnel in Hawthorne, Calif., on Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018. Musk has unveiled his underground transportation tunnel, allowing invited guests to take some of the first rides ever on the tech entrepreneur's solution to "soul-destroying traffic." (Robyn Beck/Pool Photo via AP)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk jokingly motions to kick before introducing the Model Y at Tesla's design studio Thursday, March 14, 2019, in Hawthorne, Calif. The Model Y may be Tesla's most important product yet as it attempts to expand into the mainstream and generate enough cash to repay massive debts that threaten to topple the Palo Alto, Calif., company. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)