In his first year of actively posting on Truth Social, Trump amplified QAnon-promoting accounts nearly 500 times

Former President Donald Trump amplified QAnon-promoting accounts nearly 500 times during his first year of actively posting on his social media platform Truth Social, according to a Media Matters review.

During his presidency from 2017 to 2021, Trump repeatedly amplified Twitter accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory — a movement which began in October 2017. By the time Trump’s Twitter account was suspended in the final days of his presidency, he had amplified QAnon-promoting accounts on the platform more than 300 times. During that time, Trump also praised the QAnon community multiple times. Months after Trump left office, and after QAnon show co-hosts known online as “intheMatrixxx” and “ShadyGrooove” received press credentials for a Trump rally, Politico reported that associates of Trump would try to “weed out any QAnon influences — both adherents and postings — getting close to him” and would work to distance the MAGA movement more broadly from the conspiracy theory movement.

But Trump’s first year of actively posting on Truth Social — which began in late April 2022 — suggests that the attempt to distance Trump from QAnon, if it actually happened, was not successful. Media Matters has tracked Trump’s amplifications of QAnon-promoting accounts — which have explicitly promoted the conspiracy theory including its slogan, “Q” posts, or related imagery — on his social media platform in almost real time. Between April 28, 2022, and the same day in 2023, Trump amplified QAnon-promoting accounts on Truth Social at least 471 times, including explicit QAnon content.

Specifically, among those 471 amplifications, Trump:

• Amplified at least two posts featuring content from QAnon’s central figure, “Q.”