Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has rubbished a report by a US daily that claimed former President Donald Trump, who has been permanently banned from Twitter, “encouraged” him to buy the micro-blogging site. Mr Musk has called the report “false”.

The report in the New York Post quoted Devin Nunes, the CEO of Donald Trump's own social media app Truth Social, as saying that the former president “encouraged Elon Musk to buy it (Twitter) because someone has to take on these tech tyrants.”

When the US daily shared its story on Twitter, Elon Musk replied, “This is false. I have had no communication, directly or indirectly, with [Donald] Trump, who has publicly stated that he will be exclusively on Truth Social”.

Last month, Elon Musk bought Twitter in an all-cash deal worth $44 billion. The dice began to roll for the deal in early April when the Tesla Boss disclosed that he was Twitter's largest individual shareholder with 9 percent stake in the company. Soon he agreed to join Twitter's Board but backed out of it within a week of accepting the offer.

Mr Musk has pitched his Twitter deal as a move to protect free speech, accusing the top executives of the company of far-fetched censorship. The SpaceX chief is yet to clearly lay out his plans on how he wants to change Twitter.

Meanwhile, speculation swirled whether Donald Trump would return to Twitter under the new leadership.

The social media platform banned Donald Trump in January 2021, following the violence at US Capitol by his followers.