NEW YORK: A spokesperson for former US President Donald Trump confirmed that Donald Trump Jr.’s X account was hacked, following a series of bizarre and erroneous posts.
In a statement, spokesperson Andrew Surabian announced, “Don’s account has been hacked,” addressing the situation on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). Surabian emphasized that a post claiming the former president had passed away was “obviously not true.”
The compromised account falsely declared the demise of Donald Trump Sr. and suggested that Trump Jr. would run for president. This deceptive post quickly garnered over 1,000 shares on X and received hundreds of thousands of views within minutes.
Moreover, the account’s profile featured a pinned post employing a racial term to disparage President Joe Biden, and another post appeared to contain a threat directed at North Korea. These posts were removed approximately 30 minutes after they initially appeared.
False Claims About Donald Trump’s Death
The incident raises concerns about X’s responsibility for safeguarding user accounts, especially those belonging to prominent political figures, as the platform approaches the 2024 elections. It remains uncertain whether Trump Jr.’s private direct communications were compromised during the breach and whether two-factor authentication was enabled on his account.
The Federal Trade Commission is currently investigating X’s ability to protect user privacy and whether the platform may have violated legally binding commitments made in 2011 to secure the platform. Last year, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the company’s former security chief, blew the whistle on pervasive and unaddressed security vulnerabilities, prompting the investigation.
This isn’t the first time that high-profile accounts on the platform have been hacked. In 2020, hackers posing as Twitter IT support took control of accounts belonging to former President Barack Obama, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and others, including Biden and Musk. Twitter disclosed that the hackers had potentially obtained account information, including private messages.
The misleading X post reached a wide audience, eliciting reactions of concern, humor, and sarcasm from users on the platform.
