Trump Celebrates Elon Musk Twitter Takeover — But Claims Truth Social Has ‘Bigger Numbers’ Than TikTok

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Former President Donald Trump celebrated Elon Musk taking over Twitter on his own social media platform Truth Social — a Twitter rival that he claimed had “bigger numbers” last week than several much bigger platforms.

Trump posted on Friday: “TRUTH SOCIAL has become somewhat of a phenomena. Last week it had bigger numbers than all other platforms, including TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest. It also looks and works better to my eye. I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country. Twitter must now work hard to rid itself of all of the bots and fake accounts that have hurt it so badly. It will be much smaller, but better. I LOVE TRUTH!”

Source: Screenshot

Trump’s claim about the success of Truth Social strains credulity. While his upstart platform has been more successful than other conservative Twitter rivals, it has nowhere near the numbers of TikTok, Twitter or Facebook.

TikTok boasts more than 1 billion active users, while Facebook has close to 2 billion. Twitter has more than 250 million.

So what is Trump talking about? Washington Post tech writer Will Oremus said he could be referring to Truth Social briefly topping the download charts on the Google Play store after it was made available there earlier this month.

The app no longer registers on those charts, where TikTok is in first place.

Musk closed the $44 billion deal to acquire the social media company on Thursday. He reportedly fired CEO Parag Agrawal; CFO Ned Segal; legal policy, trust and safety head Vijaya Gadde; and general counsel Sean Edgett.

Gadde was behind the permanent suspension of Trump from Twitter following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Musk has said he would bring Trump back to Twitter.