Trump to Musk: Release Twitter Files on My Suspension, Other 2020 Election-Related Decisions

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally protesting the electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Former President Donald Trump may not be returning to Twitter, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t watching closely to see what the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, will release next.

Following the latest disclosures in Musk’s ongoing Twitter Files saga—which included the revelation that Twitter had “secret blacklists” of users to “shadow ban,” or limit their reach—Trump took to his own social media network of Truth Social Dec. 9 to suggest additional disclosures.

“ELON: The Twitter releases are a revelation in that they show, in a very powerful fashion, the FBI and ‘Justice’ illegally colluding, proving conclusively, in one more very powerful way, that the 2020 Presidential Election was Rigged & Stolen,” Trump wrote. “What everyone is REALLY waiting to see, however, is the Twitter information and thought process leading up to the time of the so-called ‘Election,’ and ultimately the ‘Deplatforming’ of the President of the United States. Big moment in history. Thank you!”

The Deplatforming

Following the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, Trump’s personal Twitter account was removed from the platform, which claimed that the then-president had violated its “Glorification of Violence” policy.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them—specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter—we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said at the time.

“Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly,” the company added. “It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.”

Although Trump’s account has since been restored, an increasing amount of evidence contradicts the company’s claims of transparency.

Election Interference

The first Twitter Files installment exposed the company’s motivations in censoring the New York Post’s infamous story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, but one of the notable revelations to come out of “Twitter Files Part Two” was not only that Twitter had an entire system in place for limiting the reach of certain users—which the company has previously denied—but that some of those users were political candidates.

When asked by political commentator Ian Miles Cheong if any political candidates “either in the US or elsewhere” had been subject to shadow banning while they were seeking office or reelection, Musk replied, “Yes.”

Though Musk did not elaborate on which candidates had been targeted, his response aligned with his previous assertions that Twitter had “interfered in elections.”

Last Saturday, following the initial Twitter Files dump, Musk hinted at what that alleged interference might have included.

“If Twitter is doing one team’s bidding before an election, shutting down dissenting voices on a pivotal election, that is the definition of election interference,” he noted.

Trump, meanwhile, responded to those first revelations by suggesting that the 2020 election results should be discarded.

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?” he questioned.

Visibility Filtering

Notably, all of the individuals Weiss named Thursday as having been targeted for shadow banning—or as Twitter employees called it internally, “visibility filtering”—had espoused politically conservative views.

For instance, accounts identified by Weiss as having been subject to such filtering included those of conservative commentator Dan Bongino and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, as well as the popular conservative LibsOfTikTok account, which was suspended six times in 2022 alone for alleged violations of Twitter’s “hateful conduct” policy.

However, Weiss noted that, in an October 2022 memo recommending the account for yet another suspension, Twitter admitted that LibsOfTikTok had “not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy” since its last suspension.

Additionally, another individual Twitter blacklisted was Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine who had criticized the COVID-19 lockdowns as being harmful to children and promoted the Great Barrington Declaration’s alternative model of pandemic management.

Weiss did not specify if the accounts of any overtly liberal public figures had been subject to similar filtering.

What’s Next

Musk has yet to respond to Trump’s request for more 2020-related releases. The Epoch Times has reached out to Musk for comment.

On Thursday, however, the Twitter CEO did disclose that the company is working on a software update that will show users if they have been shadow banned and why and allow them to appeal that decision.

“Truth brings reconciliation,” he opined.

Musk also divulged that the platform would soon start deleting the 1.5 billion accounts that had not been logged into or utilized in years.

The third installment of the Twitter Files will be published by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, although a date has yet to be announced for its release.