Trump has amplified QAnon-promoting accounts nearly 1,000 times on Truth Social
Trump’s frequent amplification of QAnon accounts on Truth Social belies his associates’ promise to “weed out any QAnon influences” from him
Written by Alex Kaplan
Published
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has amplified QAnon-promoting accounts nearly 1,000 times during the roughly two and a half years he’s been posting on his social media platform Truth Social, according to a Media Matters review.
In our review, we deemed Truth Social accounts “QAnon-promoting accounts” if they explicitly promoted the conspiracy theory by sharing affiliated slogans, posts from QAnon’s central figure “Q,” or imagery related to the conspiracy theory. We counted reposting or quoting a post as amplifying it.
This activity marks a significant increase from his boosting of the conspiracy theory on Twitter (now X) during his presidency — a longer span of time than his activity on Truth Social thus far. From 2017 until his then-Twitter account was suspended on January 8, 2021, Trump amplified QAnon-promoting accounts on that platform more than 300 times, and he also praised the QAnon community multiple times.
After leaving office, Trump continued to associate with the movement, even granting hosts of a QAnon show press credentials for a Trump rally in July 2021. Amid reporting on that rally, associates of Trump told reporters that they had tried to “weed out any QAnon influences — both adherents and postings — getting close to him.”
Since then, however, Trump has been photographed with multiple QAnon figures, his campaign gave a QAnon figure a press pass to a 2023 campaign rally while reportedly denying some mainstream journalists from other campaign events, and he has used a song associated with QAnon on social media and at his rallies. In June, his son Eric Trump went on a QAnon-affiliated show and praised its host for his “honest voice.” And the following month, a QAnon influencer said she got credentials for the 2024 Republican National Convention, where Trump became the Republican nominee for president.
Trump has also continued to amplify QAnon-promoting accounts (and other accounts with extreme and violent content) on Truth Social.
Between April 28, 2022 — when Trump began actively posting on Truth Social — and October 28, 2024, Trump amplified QAnon-promoting accounts on Truth Social at least 953 times. That marks an increase from Media Matters’ last count of Trump’s activity, through April 29, 2024, when he had amplified QAnon-promoting accounts more than 800 times. On the platform, Trump has also promoted explicit QAnon content, including repeatedly amplifying posts that featured content from posts from “Q” (QAnon’s central figure) and a video that included the QAnon slogan (“where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA”).
Among Trump’s promotion of QAnon-promoting accounts on Truth Social, he specifically:
- Amplified at least 7 posts from QAnon-promoting accounts that featured text from Q posts. This includes at least 1 post between April 30 and October 28.
- Amplified at least 45 posts that featured “Q” in their text or image; the QAnon slogan; the QAnon phrases “nothing can stop what is coming” (or “NCSWIC” for short) or “we are the news now”; or “Q+,” a term some QAnon supporters use to refer to Trump himself. This includes 12 new instances between April 30 and October 28.
- Amplified at least two QAnon influencers that have seemingly been involved with a known QAnon influencer collective: “Pepe Deluxe” after April 30 and “Patri0tsareinContr0l” before April 30.
- Amplified at least 190 individual QAnon-promoting accounts, including 14 accounts that he had not promoted before April 30.
Truth Social’s leadership has actively courted QAnon supporters to the platform, and the former president and his allies have associated with and appealed to the QAnon community in other ways as well. For instance, former Trump administration official and Truth Social board member Kash Patel said that “we try to incorporate” QAnon “into our overall messaging scheme to capture audiences.”