Fake news alert: Trump has not congratulated Elon Musk for Twitter takeover

A screenshot of a statement purported to be of former US President Donald Trump congratulating Elon Musk is doing the rounds on social media.

This follows the reports of Elon Musk closing a $44bn deal to buy Twitter and firing its top executives.

Twitter permanently suspended Trump's official handle in January last year after he had called his supporters "patriots" who had attacked the US Capitol.

The statement attributed to Trump reads: "Trump 10/27/22 Congratulations to Elon Musk on his purchase of Twitter. Many people are saying that change was needed, as the old management was too concerned with the woke agenda. I have been told that my account will be back up and running on Monday we will see. Happy to be able to engage with an African-American-owned business!"

News Agency, ANI, tweeted the screenshot and wrote, "Former US President Donald Trump issues a statement on his purchase of Twitter.

Several Twitter users shared the screenshot with the same claim. (Click here, here and here.)

Fact Check

NewsMeter checked Trump's website where he regularly releases his statements. However, we did not find any statement congratulating Musk on the Twitter takeover. At the time of writing this article, the last statement was released on 26 October about a rally in Ohio.

We also checked the Twitter handle of Trump's spokesperson Liz Harrington but did not come across any such statement.

An American journalist, Alex Wagner, working with the news channel MSNBC tweeted, "In the rush of reporting on Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter we included some bad information about Donald Trump's reaction to the deal. We regret the error."

Mikael Thalen, the staff writer working with Daily Dot, also debunked the fake statement doing the rounds on the Internet.

ANI has also regretted the error and has retracted its tweet. They have clarified that "No statement from Donald Trump on Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter has been released. This was a fake statement circulating. Error regretted."

It is evident that the statement attributed to Donald Trump doing the round on the internet is fake. Hence, the claim is false.