Former President Donald Trump was reinstated on Twitter Saturday night by Elon Musk, following a poll conducted on the platform where users overwhelmingly voted to have him back on the social network. 

His account was reinstated nearly two years after the company suspended him, citing his role in the January 6 Capitol riots. The Twitter poll logged more than 15 million votes with nearly 52% of those weighing in favouring Trump’s return.  

Also Read | What is ‘Vox Populi, Vox Dei’? Elon Musk tweets phrase after reinstating Donald Trump on Twitter

“The people have spoken,” Musk tweeted Saturday evening. “Trump will be reinstated.” The ex-President’s account was restored shortly after.

How many Twitter followers does Trump have now?

At the time he got banned from the platform more than a year ago, Trump had 88.8 million Twitter followers. At the time of writing this article, the ex-POTUS had 1 million followers. 

Within just four hours, he has amassed a million followers, without posting any new tweets. His last tweet was from January 8, 2021, which read, “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” This alluded to the question repeatedly asked by his followers after he was defeated by President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. 

Also Read | Elon Musk reinstates Donald Trump on Twitter, but ex-president pours doubt on return

There have been reports of Twitter accounts that got reinstated following suspension returning with zero followers, even though they had a considerable number of followers when they were active accounts. This is especially the scenario when the suspension was an error made by Twitter. 

With time, the account in question would automatically gain back the number of followers it originally had. Although Twitter never stated anything about Trump’s account being erroneously suspended, the same rule might hold true for the ex-president. And if so, he might get back his millions of followers within the next few hours.