Elon Musk reinstates Donald Trump's Twitter account after 15 million accounts respond to poll

Elon Musk has reinstated former US president Donald Trump's Twitter account after more than 15 million accounts responded to a poll.

Mr Musk, who bought the social media site last month, asked users in a poll whether Mr Trump should be reinstated and 51.8 per cent of the 15,085,458 responses voted yes. 

"The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated," Mr Musk tweeted.

Mr Trump had appeared less than keen earlier in the day.

"I don't see any reason for it," Mr Trump said when asked whether he planned to return to Twitter by a panel at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual leadership meeting.

He said he would stick with his new platform Truth Social, the app developed by his Trump Media and Technology Group startup.

He said Truth Social had better user engagement than Twitter and was doing "phenomenally well".

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 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."

However, this week, Mr Musk 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.

Reuters