Trump ‘Encouraged’ Elon Musk to Buy Twitter According to Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes; Musk Calls BS
Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes claims that former President Donald Trump “encouraged” Elon Musk to purchase Twitter, although, to many observers, the two companies aim to be direct competitors. Update: Musk calls bullshit.
Nunes appeared on Fox Business’s Varney & Co. and host Stuart Varney asked the former Republican Congressman turned tech CEO if Musk’s potentially “turn(s) Twitter around. If he does, where does that leave Truth Social, which you run?”
“We’re all for it,” Nunes said of the planned Twitter purchase. “President Trump basically, before Elon Musk bought it, actually said to go and buy it because the goal of our company is to build a community where people are in a family-friendly, safe environment. [It’s] very much different than Twitter, and that’s why we encouraged Elon Musk to buy it because someone has to take on tech tyrants.”
“Donald Trump wanted to make sure the American people got their voice back, and the internet was open, and that is what we are doing,” Nunes continued. “People like Elon Musk doing what he’s doing. We are definitely in favor of it.”
Musk, however, denied the claim in a reply to a NY Post tweet, writing “This is false. I’ve had no communication, directly or indirectly, with Trump, who has publicly stated he will be exclusive on Truth Social.”
Musk appears to be calling Devin Nunes a liar.
While still very early in its existence, it is fair to say that Truth Social has not enjoyed a terrific launch of its product, even if most of it was in beta. Reports of a buggy application combined with almost no engagement from the former president, have led some experts in this area, like Kara Swisher, to call this application dead, “stick a fork in it,” as she did in a CNN+ interview that is no longer online, alas.
Why would Trump avoid his own social media platform? One big reason could be the unfinalized merger of its parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), with Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC). It’s not clear what ownership stake Trump has in this endeavor, but DWAC’s current market cap of roughly 1.75 billion dollars suggests that Trump could walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars IF the deal goes through and the stock price doesn’t crater before Trump can liquidate his equity stake.
Nunes returned to explain the overall value proposition of Truth Social in a ham-fisted manner that appeared only to parade his ignorance of how social media works. He suggested that Truth Social will combine all of the features one sees on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and proudly noted that none of the application or underlying engineering was built by “big tech.”
Anyone who has experienced the unreliable and buggy version of Truth Social can tell you that very little tech, big or other, appears to have gone into its development.
Watch above via Fox Business.
