Elon Musk asks Twitter users to vote on whether to allow Trump back to platform

Newly-minted Twitter CEO Elon Musk, in his latest move as he takes over the company, has asked Twitter users to weigh in on whether the platform should allow former president Donald Trump’s account to be reinstated. 

Posting an open poll on Friday, Musk asked users to vote simply “yes” or “no” to the statement “Reinstate former president Trump.” Since it was posted, over 14 million users have voted on the poll, with votes to reinstate Trump leading by a small margin with mere hours left before the poll closed on Saturday evening.

Musk has not said whether he will use the poll as the sole deciding factor in his decision over whether or not to allow Trump back on the site.

Trump was banned from Twitter in January 2021, after the Capitol riot, with the platform claiming Trump’s tweets had the potential to incite violence. 

Trump was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram, and went on to form  his own social media platform, Truth Social, which has become the former president’s preferred method of communicating with his followers.

Musk’s poll has become a favorite topic of the new Twitter CEO’s posts since it went up.

Musk has Tweeted several times about his intrigue with the results, saying “Trump poll getting ~1M votes/hr!” and “Fascinating to watch Twitter Trump poll!”

He also posted a cryptic Tweet that may indicate he plans to use the results of the poll to make his decision about Trump, writing, “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” which translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”