(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Donald Trump Jr.’s Twitter account was hacked early Wednesday, with the hacker sending a series of offensive tweets, including the one when he announced the “death” of his father, Donald Trump Sr.
“I’m sad to announce [that] my father Donald Trump has passed away. I will be running for president in 2024,” the now-infamous first message from his account read, as reported by the New York Post.
At 8:46 a.m. — more than 20 minutes after the fake death announcement — Trump Sr. indirectly proved that he is, in fact, still alive by posting an unrelated message on Twitter’s rival social media platform, Truth Social.
Aside from the fake death announcement, the hacker also wrote and published other inflammatory tweets, such as “North Korea is about to get smoked.” In another tweet, the hacker wrote that Trump Jr. had “some interesting messages with Jeffrey Epstein,” more than four years after the pedophile was murdered in his cell.
Pretending to be Trump Jr., the hacker also wrote “F–k Joe Biden,” calling the latter a “stupid ass” n-word. He also claimed that crypto personality Richard Heart, who was accused of stealing $12 million from investors, is innocent.
“When I become president I am going to burn the SEC,” another fake tweet said.
All of the fake tweets were removed from his Twitter page just before 9 a.m.
In addition to that, Trump Jr.’s spokesman, Andrew Surabian, tweeted that the earlier messages were “obviously not true,” confirming that Trump Jr.’s account had been hacked.
The Post added that it wasn’t clear whether Trump Jr. had two-factor authentication enabled and whether the hacker may have been able to access his messages.
This incident raised the question of whether Twitter can secure user accounts — especially those belonging to high-profile political figures — ahead of the 2024 election.
The social media platform is still under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over its ability to protect user data and whether it may have violated binding commitments it made in 2011 to secure the platform, according to the Post.
