Social media use by Donald Trump

Donald Trump's engagement with social media garnered global attention after he joined Twitter in May 2009. Over nearly twelve years, he tweeted approximately 57,000 times, which included around 8,000 tweets during the 2016 election campaign and more than 25,000 during his presidency. The White House indicated that these tweets should be regarded as official communications. When Twitter suspended Trump’s account in January 2021, just days before his term ended, he had amassed over 8.89 crore followers.

Throughout much of his first term, Trump's Twitter account, known for its controversial and often misleading statements, was largely unmoderated under the pretext of "public interest". However, Congress took its own steps to moderate his content, and despite facing political backlash, Trump's tweeting only intensified.

During his 2020 reelection campaign, he made unfounded claims that postal voting could lead to electoral fraud. Following his defeat, he continually questioned the legitimacy of the election results, with his tweets contributing to the incitement of the Capitol attack. Although the Senate ultimately acquitted him in his second impeachment trial, social media platforms acted quickly to ban him. Facebook and Instagram imposed a two-year suspension on his accounts. Research analytics firm Zignal Labs noted that misinformation related to the election dropped by 73 percent in the week following Trump's bans from various platforms.

In November 2022, after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, Trump's account was reinstated. However, Trump expressed his intention not to return to Twitter, opting instead to focus on his own social media platform, Truth Social. In April 2023, during his arraignment hearing, Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan cautioned Trump against using social media to provoke violence.