Former US President Donald Trump, who was permanently from Twitter and other social media platforms for his alleged role in instigating the January 6 riots in Washington DC that culminated in the storming of the Capitol, will not rejoin the micro-blogging platform despite new owner Elon Musk’s strong stance on free speech.

Twitter on Monday announced that it had agreed to sell itself to Musk in a $44 billion deal, but Trump confirmed, on the same day, that he would not return to Twitter, but would instead use his own social media app, TRUTH Social.

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“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump told Fox News on Monday, hours before Musk’s takeover of the company was announced.

“We’re taking in millions of people, and what we’re finding is that the response on TRUTH is much better than being on Twitter. Twitter has bots and fake accounts, and we are doing everything we can. The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter,” the 75-year-old explained.

“I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH,” the former President further said.

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Trump, who on Monday was held in civil contempt, also told Fox News that he would join TRUTH Social and begin “TRUTHing” from the next week.

After a closed beta test in February, TRUTH Social was formally launched for the public last month, and has since been running under its brand new cloud-services. The app is owned by the former President’s company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which is headed by Former Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican from California.