Trump Furious After Twitter's Bot Purge Leaves Him With Fourteen Followers

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

25 April 19

The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."

onald J. Trump was reportedly “furious” on Wednesday morning after a purge of right-wing bots by Twitter left him with a total of fourteen remaining followers, aides have confirmed.

Rising at 3 A.M. to engage in one of his trademark early-morning tweetstorms, Trump was incensed to discover that his Twitter following had plummeted from more than forty-eight million to a little more than a dozen.

At Twitter headquarters, in San Francisco, a company spokesman confirmed that Trump had indeed lost 48,076,920 followers in the bot purge. “It turned out that over forty-six million of the President’s followers came from a single troll farm in Macedonia,” the spokesman said.

As of Wednesday, Trump’s fourteen remaining Twitter followers included his daughter Ivanka; his sons Eric and Donald, Jr.; several White House aides; and someone named Heinrich Himmler III.

“We’re praying that Heinrich is a real person,” a White House aide said. “The President can’t afford to lose another follower.”