Did a social media post send Wall Street into chaos?

Monday was wild.

Actually, “wild” doesn’t seem to cover it fully. What’s wilder than wild?

Whatever that word is, that’s what Monday was.

It started off with, uh, wild swings in the stock market. From way down to suddenly way up to back down again. And, apparently, social media drove the fluctuations. Specifically, it was one tweet from a dubious account with an official-sounding name.

Walter Bloomberg (sounds like a real media financial guy, right?) tweeted this out to his nearly 850,000 followers: “HASSETT: TRUMP IS CONSIDERING A 90-DAY PAUSE IN TARIFFS FOR ALL COUNTRIES EXCEPT CHINA.”

This Walter Bloomberg fellow, who has the verified blue check mark on his X account, was apparently quoting White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett. The quote could have come from something Hassett didn’t actually say on Fox News early Monday morning. While appearing on “Fox & Friends,” Hassett was asked by co-host Brian Kilmeade if Trump was considering a 90-day pause on tariffs.

Hassett said, “I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide … even if you think there will be some negative effect from the trade side, that’s still a small share of GDP.”

And somehow — whether it was because of the tweet or reporters following up on that tweet — the market suddenly shifted. Wildly.

Mediaite’s David Gilmour wrote, “A​​t 10:15 a.m. the false story was cited on CNBC live on-air. Hosts admitted they were trying to verify the story but the news on a network watched by Wall Street’s biggest players immediately sent markets reeling from tariffs panic into a euphoric spike. Stocks surged as much as 8% in seconds, only to crash 3.5% moments later when the White House scrambled to CNBC to call the report what it was: ‘Fake news.’”

A CNBC spokesperson told NBC News’ Rob Wile and Jason Abbruzzese, “As we were chasing the news of the market moves in real-time, we aired unconfirmed information in a banner. Our reporters quickly made a correction on air.”

It wasn’t just CNBC chasing the story. Reuters was, too. A spokesperson for Reuters told Wile and Abbruzzese, “Reuters, drawing from a headline on CNBC, published a story on April 7 saying White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett had said that President Donald Trump was considering a 90-day tariff pause on all countries except China. The White House denied the report. Reuters has withdrawn the incorrect report and regrets its error.”

The tweet from “Walter Bloomberg” was deleted, but media followers immediately scrambled to figure out exactly how this all went down. For the record, Gilmour wrote, “The account boasts over 844K followers but appears to be unaffiliated with any news outlet, although it mimics the style of financial wire services.”

At one point, reporter Erik Wasson, who actually does work for Bloomberg, whether it was in jest or not, tweeted, “PSA: Do not rely on Walter Bloomberg X account. He doesn't work for us and is not authorized by Bloomberg.”

In real time, as all of this was going, Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal tweeted, “INSANE market action right now. Market exploded higher on a headline attributed to Kevin Hassett. And now nobody can figure out where it came from and the markets are diving again. An 8% surge and then a 3.5% plunge in a matter of seconds.”

So, wait, this one tweet quoting something from an interview where a White House official didn’t say what someone thought he said turned Wall Street upside down?

Semafor co-founder Ben Smith tweeted, “Incredible story: Social media mirage (verified account, aggressive interpretation of a Fox interview w Hassett) driving really massive moves in the market.”

A mirage, indeed. As Monday went on, President Donald Trump issued new threats to China, telling the country to drop its retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. or face additional tariffs of 50% beginning later this week. And Trump gave no signs of backing down on tariffs.

The New York Times’ Chris Cameron wrote, “As Trump vowed to maintain his sweeping tariff policies, he gave a rosy, exaggerated picture of the current economy, saying that price inflation on ‘everything is down at levels that nobody ever thought possible.’ Inflation eased more than expected in February, but prices were still up 2.8 percent from a year earlier. Even before the tariffs were announced, economists were bracing for higher prices and slower growth.”

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Social media’s big moments

Social media has become the town square, it seems, for talk regarding Trump and the tariffs. Trump announces major policies and threats on his Truth Social. As we saw Monday, social media plays a major role in sudden market shifts. And, as I wrote about in yesterday’s newsletter, some financial bigshots appear to be reaching out to Trump through social media posts.

Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager who is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, posted a lengthy tweet about the Trump’s tariffs. Clearly, Ackman’s tweet was intended for Trump.

The Washington Post’s Julian Mark wrote, “The criticism marks a fracture in Ackman’s — and other business leaders’ — support for Trump.”

It also says something that Ackman is speaking to Trump through social media, as opposed to directly.

Speaking out

 

Like him or not, Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy runs a very successful digital media company. And whenever he talks, many people listen. He has 3.2 million followers on X — many of them dedicated fans (known as Stoolies) of him and his even more popular website. He is an influencer in every sense of the word.

So it’s news whenever he comments on anything, including politics. Portnoy has been a Trump supporter since before the election, and so when he was highly critical last week of Trump’s handling of the economy, it became a thing. So much so that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about it during a press conference.

Portnoy was back at it again Monday morning. On his “Davey Day Trader” stream, Portnoy ripped into the president and referred to Monday as “Orange Monday.”

As Portnoy explained, “So Trump rolls out the tariffs, right? And it destroys the stock market. People are comparing it to all these other crashes. This one’s the only one I can think of that’s man-made. Like, the stock market crashes on 9/11, yes. The stock market crashed (during) COVID, yes. But this is a decision that one guy made that crashed the whole stock market. That’s why we’re calling it Orange Monday and not Black Monday.”

Portnoy then complained about how Trump spent his weekend as economic fears gripped the country.

He said, “I didn’t love seeing him on the golf course playing his course championship and being like, ‘I’m a very low handicap.’ I didn’t love that. The stock market is getting crushed. I’ve lost 20% of my net worth, and you’re out on the golf course. … Like in my mind, Donald Trump just cost me 20 million with whatever he did. Maybe don’t be on the golf course. Because I’m curled up in a ball in bed sweating.”

Portnoy also took some verbal shots at conservative media personalities Will Cain of Fox News and Clay Travis. Mediaite’s Ahmad Austin Jr. has the details.

And one more

This story is a few days old, but The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr had an interesting piece: “Some corners of conservative media aren’t thrilled with Trump’s tariffs.”

I wrote last week how The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has been tough on Trump when it comes to tariffs. Barr mentioned the Journal but also those much more conservative (and much more supportive of Trump).

Barr wrote that Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro, Fox News contributor Ben Domenech and even “Fox & Friends” co-hosts Lawrence Jones and Steve Doocy have expressed opinions that range from critical to, at the very least, concerned.

Journal drama

Well, this feels a bit unfortunate.

We all know the story of Evan Gershkovich. He was the Wall Street Journal reporter who was wrongfully detained in Russia for 16 months after falsely and without proof being accused of espionage. He was released in a prisoner swap last August.

The whole ordeal makes for a great story that could be turned into a book and/or film. As it turns out, both the Journal and Gershkovich are interested in telling that story, and tensions have arisen between the two.

According to Variety’s Tatiana Siegel, the Journal’s Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw are turning their 7,000-word in-depth piece about Gershkovich’s story into a book. The Journal also has exclusive footage of Gershkovich’s release that would be used for a documentary.

But Siegel writes, “The only problem is Gershkovich is not cooperating on either the documentary or the book, sources tell Variety. Instead, Gershkovich has his own film and book in the works, sparking tensions inside the newsroom over the competing projects.”

Siegel added that “a debate is raging inside the Journal, with some backing the pair and others siding with Gershkovich, who is living now in Berlin. In a sign of the fraught relationship, Gershkovich has written just one piece for the Journal since his release, the December piece titled ‘Tracking Putin’s Most Feared Secret Agency — From Inside a Russian Prison and Beyond.’ Ironically, Gershkovich shares a byline with Parkinson and Hinshaw for that piece.”

Stay tuned on this one, although it would appear that the story is best told by Gershkovich. After all, he lived it.

Washington Post tech workers move to unionize

For this item, I turn it over to my Poynter colleague, Angela Fu.

More than 300 engineers, product designers and other technology workers at The Washington Post announced Monday that they are launching a union campaign.

The campaign comes at a time of tumult for the Post, whose journalists are already unionized. The company has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs and buyouts in recent years, including a cut last week that affected 25 workers in its tech organization. In September, the Post’s Arc XP division, which maintains a content management system that the Post sells to media brands around the world, laid off a quarter of its staff, or 54 employees.

Meanwhile, the company has bled hundreds of thousands of subscriptions as its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, reshapes the paper with policies that many see as an attempt to appease President Donald Trump.

“I want a union to guarantee transparency and fairness in pay, career advancement and benefits,” said a software engineer in a press release from the unionizing workers. “I want a union to protect our jobs from our executives’ political whims.”

The Post employees are unionizing with the NewsGuild, which has also organized tech workers at The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Seattle Times in recent years. Both tech and media have experienced a spike in union campaigns since the pandemic’s start.

A Washington Post spokesperson declined to comment on the tech workers’ unionization effort. If the company does not voluntarily recognize the union, workers will have to petition the National Labor Relations Board for an election.

When one door closes …

Comedian and writer Amber Ruffin was recently canceled as guest speaker at the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — presumably because of comments she made criticizing the Republican Party and refusing the request from the WHCA to criticize both sides of the aisle during her appearance. (The WHCA officially said the reason for the change was to reconfigure the dinner to move away from divisiveness and concentrate on honoring journalists.)

Anyway, Ruffin is out at the WHCA dinner, but she’s now in at an upcoming PEN America gala. PEN America is a nonprofit that “stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world.”

In a statement, PEN America co-interim CEO Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf praised Ruffin for her “brilliant social commentary, her satire and exceptional talent.”

Shariyf added, “She is truly emblematic of the talented creators who we need on stages and in writers’ rooms during a time of unprecedented censorship in this country. We’re both delighted and honored to have her with us.”

The Associated Press’ Hillel Italie has more.

Media tidbits

• The New York Times’ Kate Conger with “How X Is Benefiting as Musk Advises Trump.”
• Politico’s Brendan Bordelon with “Washington worries Trump could bail out Zuckerberg.”
• The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe with “Republican senator claims video floating killing of journalists was a ‘joke.’”
• The Tampa Bay Times announced its commitment to better cover the environment with the creation of an Environmental Hub. Executive editor Mark Katches called it a “core area” of coverage for Times readers and wrote, “​​We want to ensure we always have the reporting firepower to produce distinctive and meaningful journalism to serve Floridians.”

Hot type

• Politico’s Calder McHugh has a Q&A with Graydon Carter: “The Canadian Who’s Donald Trump’s Oldest Enemy.”

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