'He loved his Twitter': Trump's advisers don't believe the former president when he says he won't go back to Twitter if Elon Musk unbans him

• Donald Trump's aides don't believe him when he says he won't go back to Twitter, reports The Washington Post.
• The Post spoke to several people who were familiar with Trump's Twitter-reading habits.

Some of former President Donald Trump's aides do not believe him when he says he won't go back to Twitter even if he gets his account back, per a new report from The Washington Post.

The Post interviewed several people familiar with Trump's habits and a Trump adviser, who commented on how the former president still appears to have significant interest in the platform.

Two people who spoke to The Post anonymously told the publication that Trump, despite criticizing Twitter and calling it "boring," still checks out content on the site fairly often. The sources told The Post that Trump mainly accesses his Twitter content by reading tweets from journalists and politicians that aides print out for him.

The sources also commented that Trump often complains about how his reach has been dramatically reduced because he's been off Twitter.

His spokeswoman, Liz Harrington, now communicates most of his statements, though she only has 265,000 followers — a fraction of Trump's peak follower count of more than 88 million people.

On his homegrown social media app Truth Social, Trump has 1.4 million users, a fraction of his former follower base.

"Truth Social is working out its kinks, they are onboarding people … but he loved his Twitter," a Trump adviser told The Post. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Musk has not said whether he will move to reinstate Trump's account. However, the newly-minted Twitter owner said in a statement on Monday that he views free speech as "the bedrock of a functioning democracy," pledging to make Twitter a "digital town square." Musk separately tweeted that he thought the platform should keep its "worst critics" on the site in the interest of promoting free speech.

Trump has been permanently suspended from Twitter since January 8, 2021, after the platform judged that his account was being used to incite violence, particularly in light of the January 6 Capitol riot. At a Twitter all-hands on Monday, CEO Parag Agrawal demurred when asked if he thought Trump would be allowed back onto the platform.

"We don't know what direction the platform will go," he said.

Trump, however, claims that he will not return to Twitter, saying: "The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter."

"I am not going on Twitter. I am going to stay on TRUTH," Trump said, referring to TRUTH Social. "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 has made only one post on Truth Social since its launch. He was also heard struggling to say the name of the platform during a rally in Ohio on Saturday, bungling the name and calling it "Truth Central" instead.