Shortly after news broke that Elon Musk had taken over Twitter and purged executives from the company, a bogus Donald Trump press release began circulating on the platform. Truth Social CEO and former Rep. Devin Nunes responded to the fake graphic, which hailed the deal and promised a Trump return to Twitter, by writing on Truth Social that the press release was “fake news.” One of the early promoters of the fake Trump statement was right-wing pundit Dinesh D’Souza, whose tweet as of Friday morning was deleted after accumulating more than 13,000 likes. Other MAGA-world pundits also got tripped up by the fake statement, including Brandon Straka, Robby Starbuck, and Fox News’ Leo Terrell. One of the telltale signs that the statement was fake was the use of a random em-dash (Trump releases traditionally use commas) and the omission of random capital letters. The MSNBC program Alex Wagner Tonight also got duped by the edited graphic. A Trump spokesperson didn’t immediately return The Daily Beast’s request for comment. In a Truth Social post on Friday morning, Trump encouraged Musk to rid Twitter of bots and fake accounts while adding, “I LOVE TRUTH!”
