No, Elon Musk has not given Donald Trump his Twitter account back

Billionaire Elon Musk has changed his mind once again on a potential Twitter deal, indicating Oct. 4 that he intended to buy the social media platform for his original offer price of about $44 billion.

While the deal has not yet been finalized, some on social media claimed Musk has already made big changes.

"Donald Trump is back on Twitter and he made sure to thank Elon Musk," claimed two Facebook posts shared Oct. 9. The posts included a screenshot of a supposed tweet from the former president that said, "Thank you Elon Musk, I’m Back!!"

These posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

After the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Twitter permanently banned Trump from the platform for violating its policies against inciting violence. Before the ban, Trump had also repeatedly used his Twitter account to widely spread misinformation about the 2020 election.

Musk has criticized Twitter’s decision to ban anyone other than spam accounts and "those that explicitly advocate violence" from the platform. In May, he pledged to reverse the ban on Trump’s account, saying it was "a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme."

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Instagram posts

stated on October 27, 2024 in an Instagram post

Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz “says that if Democrats win they’ll make (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) speaker of the house.”

However, Musk has not taken over ownership of the social media platform yet. And as of Oct. 10, Trump’s Twitter account @realDonaldTrump was still suspended.

No record of the tweet used to claim Trump is back on Twitter could be found on the platform. The account that apparently sent the tweet is @realDonJTru, which is not an official account for the former president.

We rate this claim False.