Twitter deal burst: Trump insults Musk

Donald Trump and Elon Musk will probably no longer be friends.

Twitter deal burst: Trump insults Musk

Donald Trump and Elon Musk will probably no longer be friends. Ex-president lashes out at tech billionaire after he plans to back out of Twitter purchase Trump may be angry because Musk didn't vote for him.

Donald Trump hands out again. His latest target: Elon Musk. During a campaign appearance, the former US President described the tech billionaire as a "bullshit artist". Reluctantly, that translates to "someone who spouts a lot of bullshit."

The reason for this was Musk's announcement that he would not buy Twitter after all. His reasoning: There are too many fake accounts. The richest man on the planet had actually agreed with the company management to take over Twitter for 44 billion dollars.

"Elon will not buy Twitter," Trump said. "Where did you hear that before? From me. From me." Musk got himself into trouble. He himself looked at the contract, Trump claimed. Musk signed a "really bad contract. (...) Not a good contract." The ex-president did not say what exactly is so bad about the agreement.

Trump was banned from Twitter after he was voted out - where he spread untruths, disinformation and conspiracy stories. He had also encouraged storming of the Capitol in Washington. Trump had an enormous reach - almost 90 million accounts followed him on Twitter.

Trump urged his followers to sign up for the social network he founded, Truth Social. It was "hot as a gun". That is not entirely true: According to the financial portal Marketwatch, Trump's network has around half a million users every day. On Twitter there are almost 220 million.

Musk had promised to let Trump tweet again after the takeover. But the former president refused.

Trump may be offended because Musk appears not to have voted for him in the last two presidential elections. The Tesla founder announced in May that he had voted Democrats in the past. But these have become a party of division and hatred. That's why he will vote for the Republicans in the future.

Trump doesn't like the fact that Musk says publicly that he preferred Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. "He recently said I've never voted for a Republican," Trump said. That was new to him. "He told me he chose me. He's a bullshit artist and he won't buy [Twitter]."

Currently, it looks like Trump will run again in the presidential election in 2024. According to US media reports, he intends to announce his candidacy by the end of the month.