FACT CHECK: Did Elon Musk Copy A Donald Trump Tweet About Activists?

Elias Atienza | Senior Reporter

An image shared on Facebook claims Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk copied and slightly altered a tweet from former President Donald Trump complaining about activists.

Verdict: False

The tweet attributed to Trump does not appear on any archives of the account, nor does it seem the post came from the official account of the former president.

Fact Check:

Multiple advertisers have either slowed or completely stopped advertising on Twitter following Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform, according to Axios. In a tweet, Musk blamed “activist groups” for Twitter’s revenue dropping, the outlet reported.

The Facebook image shows a tweet from Musk about revenue and advertisers leaving the platform, before appearing to show a June 2018 tweet from Trump with similar language. The image was also shared widely on Twitter.

“America has had a massive dump in the economy, due to the radical left pressuring local leaders for higher pay, even though nothing has changed under your favorite President doing everything he can to make these radicals happy. Bigly messed up! They’re trying to destroy America,” Trump allegedly tweeted in 2018.

However, there is no evidence that Trump sent this tweet. If Trump had sent this tweet in 2018, credible media outlets would have covered it, yet none have. (RELATED: Does This Video Show Ted Cruz Saying He Has Documents That Would Implicate Adam Schiff?)

Check Your Fact also searched two archives of Trump’s tweets. A search of the University of California Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project archive of Trump’s tweets did not yield any results for the alleged tweet. The Trump Twitter Archive website also did not have any tweets matching the one in the Facebook image.

The account allegedly belonging to Trump also appears to lack the verified checkmark that was visible on his handle. In addition, a cutoff of the phrase “made with mematic,” a meme-generating phone app, is visible in the lower left-hand corner.

Misinformation around Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is not new. Check Your Fact recently debunked a video claiming to show Musk firing Twitter’s former policy chief.

Elias Atienza

Senior Reporter
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