Donald Trump Jr.'s account on X (formerly Twitter) was the subject of an apparent hacking Wednesday, and one of the messages posted contained a false announcement about the death of his father.
Former President Donald Trump did not pass away, though, and he has since posted on his Truth Social platform after the hacked messages were shared online.
Word spread quickly that Trump Jr. was hacked, but online searches nonetheless spiked for phrases like "Donald Trump Dead" and "Is Donald Trump Dead?" Supporters of the former president also accused his detractors of wishing him dead.
"I'm sad to announce, my father Donald Trump has passed away. I will be running for president in 2024," one of the hacked posts from Trump Jr. read.
Minutes after the fake message was posted, The National Pulse's Raheem Kasam confirmed the former president's son was the target of a hack.
Trump Jr.'s adviser and spokesperson, Andrew Surabian, later stated on X that it was "obviously not true" and that his client's account had been hacked.
Newsweek reached out to a representative for Donald Trump via email, as well as attempted to contact Donald Trump Jr. via the Trump Organization for comment.
Other messages posted on Trump Jr.'s account during the hack include telling X owner Elon Musk that Donald Trump "owns" him, a profane insult about President Joe Biden and a mention of "interesting messages" with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"This just in: North Korea is about to get smoked," Trump Jr.'s account wrote in another post.
The messages posted during the hack have since been removed from X. Newsweek reached out to X for comment.
While the fake messages resulted in many angry messages from the MAGA world, Eric Trump joked about the incident.
"I don't want @DonaldJTrumpJr to get his account back - this is all too entertaining," he wrote about his brother's hacked account, saying in another post: "What was @donaldtrumpjr password? Don2024?"
Trump Jr., who serves as the executive vice president of the Trump Organization and hosts a podcast on Rumble, has more than 10.4 million followers on X.
The elder Trump only recently returned to X following two years of not posting on the platform. He had been banned by what was then known as Twitter on January 8, 2021, two days after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Musk reinstated Trump's account last November, but the former president has kept his social media activity mostly on Truth Social. However, he posted his own mugshot on X after it was released by the Fulton County Sheriff's Office following his surrender on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse Georgia's 2020 election results. He has not shared any messages on X since that post.
Update 09/20/23, 10:49 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Jon Jackson is an Associate Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more
