WashingtonCNN –
A spokesman for former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Donald Trump Jr.’s account on X – the platform formerly known as Twitter – was compromised after the account began sharing a series of unusual and erratic posts .
“Don’s account has been hacked,” Andrew Surabian wrote on X, adding that a post claiming the former president had died was “obviously untrue.”
In addition to falsely claiming the elder Trump’s death, the compromised account also claimed that Trump Jr. himself was running for president. Within minutes, the post was reshared more than 1,000 times on X and viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Another post appeared to threaten the country of North Korea, while a post pinned to the account’s profile insulted President Joe Biden with a racist epithet.
About half an hour after the posts appeared, they were removed. CNN has reached out to X for comment.
The incident raises new questions about X’s role in securing user accounts, particularly those of high-profile political figures, as the platform prepares for the 2024 elections. In August,
The company is also still under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into its ability to adequately protect user privacy and whether it may have violated binding commitments it made in 2011 to secure the platform.