By Zachary Stieber
Shares of Twitter on Monday dropped 12 percent, after the company banned President Donald Trump and a slew of other conservatives.
Shares dropped after the market opened on Monday, reaching a low of $45.17. Twitter shares closed at $51.48 on Jan. 8.
Twitter said it removed Trump’s account on Friday because some of his recent posts were glorifying violence. The company echoed critics who attempted to connect Trump’s rhetoric with the breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Trump responded by accusing Twitter of coordinating “with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me—and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me.”
Twitter also banned prominent users including lawyer Sidney Powell and Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Other users who weren’t banned left the platform, including radio hosts Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh.
Among conservatives who are still on Twitter, some called for a shift to Parler, a Twitter alternative. Parler went offline Monday after Amazon Web Services refused to continue hosting its servers. Parler sued Amazon later Monday.
Gab, another Twitter competitor, has also seen skyrocketing growth.
