Trump says he prefers press releases to Twitter but will launch competing platform anyway

‘I don’t have to be so careful with every word’

Donald Trump says he prefers being off Twitter, and he may also start his own platform so he can return to social media – even though he says he prefers press releases, which don't waste as much time as "boring" tech networks.

The former president made the comments in an interview with Fox News, telling host Laura Ingraham he likes official press releases because he doesn't "have to be so careful with every word".

"We're no longer constrained by a certain number of characters. We're no longer put under, you know, the magnifying glass. And frankly, you do it less and you can do it better," Mr Trump said.

"So I put out statements now ‘from the office of’ and the statements are picked up by everybody. I mean, it actually works better."

Despite Mr Trump saying his official statements are doing much better getting to everyone on Twitter and Facebook than when he was before he was banned from them, the ex-president says he may create a competing platform.

Read more:

• Biden says Chinese president Xi Jinping ‘doesn’t have a democratic bone’ in his body
• McConnell complains Biden hasn’t spoken to him or invited him to White House since inauguration
• Photos reveal Biden’s secret press conference cheat sheets

The ex-president's aide Jason Miller announced this week they were two to three months away from launching a Trump-branded social media platform – not to be confused with Frank, being launched by Trump supporter and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

Mr Miller told The Michael Berry Show on Thursday that the ex-president has met with a half-dozen companies, and is considering a couple of finalists, to launch an independent platform that he can't be cancelled from.

"He is eying this return," Mr Miller said. "There are several different options that are in front of him, but whatever he does go and join it's going to be something that will not be able to be censored and taken down, say from folks like what Twitter and Facebook and different companies like that have done to try to suppress conservative voices."

The new Trump-branded social media network to take on the Silicon Valley tech giants comes despite the ex-president telling Ingraham that communicating through press releases allow him more freedom and spare time.

"You know If I put a comma in the wrong place, it becomes like 'he doesn't know proper English,'" he said. "You have no idea. You have much more time and actually, you can really steer something and focus something on what's very important. It really is very good."

Mr Trump also took a parting swipe at his soon-to-be social media competitor, saying people are leaving after the platform became boring in his absence.

Twitter reported in February that it ended 2020 with 192 million daily users, up from 152 million the year earlier, and they continued to grow in January 2021, the month they de-platformed the president.

“We are a platform that is obviously much larger than any one topic or any one account,” Mr Dorsey said on an investor call in February.

Mr Trump alone had about 88 million followers at the time he was booted from Twitter, with the company projecting a reduction in growth in the first quarter of 2021 of 20 per cent, down from 24 per cent a year earlier.

The second quarter of the year was expected to be even lower, with Twitter blaming the "significant pandemic-related surge" in 2020 for the lower rate of growth this year.

"It's become very, very boring and I've heard it from so many different people," Mr Trump said. "So we're off and a lot of other people are off and a lot of people are just leaving. It's become a very boring deal."