Elon Musk might be ready to reinstate Donald Trump’s Twitter account, but the former president won’t be able to fire off his thoughts like he used to. Trump won’t legally be allowed to tweet anything until it’s already been posted on Truth Social, his company’s own social media app, for six hours.
This semi-exclusivity was reported in a new SEC filing from Digital World Acquisition Corp, a firm that plans to take Trump Media & Technology Group public. After the six-hour period has elapsed, Trump is “free to post on any site to which he has access,” the filing reads. A subtle dig at Trump’s lack of Twitter access, perhaps.
The existence of this rule makes sense, really, given how tightly Trump is tied to his own media company. Trump Media & Technology Group wouldn’t benefit nearly as much if Trump skipped it It’s also objectively funny because Trump spent a significant portion of his presidency tweeting — and now he’s forced himself into a box with two million followers instead of the 88 million he had on Twitter.
There are exceptions —
The SEC filing makes it clear that the six-hour rule is true in almost all circumstances; Trump is “generally obligated” to wait before re-posting shower thoughts anywhere besides Truth. In some cases, though, Trump will be allowed to post on social media whenever he wants.
According to the SEC filing, Trump is allowed to post from his personal accounts for content relating to “political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts.” That language could be just abstract enough to let Trump rip some pretty interesting material.
Nothing much to do, anyway —
At the moment, the six-hour waiting rule won’t even really affect Trump in any noticeable way. He doesn’t have posting rights on Facebook or on Twitter, his two former megaphones, so there’s little pressure for him to post anywhere but Truth Social. Trump never even bothered joining Parler, and Trump ally, MyPillow guy’s social site barely exists.
Elon Musk has said he’ll bring Trump back to Twitter if his acquisition of the site manages to close, but that’s a very big if. And anyway, Trump has claimed he wouldn’t even want to return to the site if he had the chance to do so. We’ll all just have to tune into Truth Social for his pressing political commentary.
