Like virtually everything else since acquiring the platform, Elon Musk’s decision to lure Donald Trump back to Twitter has, uh, not gone according to plan.
After reinstating the 45th president’s account this week following the results of an extremely questionable poll, Musk has practically been groveling for Trump to start tweeting again. But Trump, like much of the rest of the world, seems to think Musk is a clown and has made it clear that he’s uninterested. Considering how much the Donald loves to be courted by rich and powerful men, his ambivalence is telling, to say the least.
But could Elon be intentionally inflating Trump’s following to appeal to his sense of vanity? That’s what some users are wondering, anyway, after noticing that they’re suddenly following his now-undead account.
“I have not followed Donald Trump on twitter since about 2016,” wrote journalist Oliver Willis. “[Elon Musk] and Twitter [and Twitter Support] made my account force-follow him. check for yourself and see.” Willis added that he’s since re-unfollowed Trump.
But he wasn’t the only Twitter user who noticed that they’re suddenly following Trump. A quick search on the platform yields dozens of users who claimed that they, too, were unpleasantly surprised to go to Trump’s page and see the “following” icon.
In any case, it’s highly unlikely that Musk is forcing anyone to follow Trump. Aside from the fact that he simply does not have the resources, Twitter is essentially being held together with scotch tape and gum at this point.
With only a fraction of the workforce remaining, the likelihood is that a programming glitch reinstated Trump’s followers when his account was revived.
However, again, it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Musk would attempt it. At least we can probably all agree that if you suddenly find yourself following Trump or anyone else on Twitter that you weren’t following before — one way or another, Elon Musk is almost definitely to blame.
