GRIM HOAX Why is ‘George Soros dead’ trending?
George SorosGEORGE Soros is one of the leading lights of American high society, so rumors of his death are sure to spread.
A bizarre hoax has sent "George Soros dead" viral online, but he is alive and well. Here's how it unfolded.
Who is George Soros?
George Soros, 92, is a Hungarian-American investor who emigrated to England in 1947 from Nazi-occupied Hungary.
He attended the London School of Economics and started his career at merchant banks in England and the US before starting his first hedge fund in 1969.
Soros used profits from that to start Soros Fund Management, his second hedge fund, in 1970.
He rose to fame and fortune two decades ago on a now-historic trade, in which he took on the Bank of England and shrewdly wagered on a devaluation of the pound.
Soros is an active contributor to politically liberal causes and frequently speaks on world economic events.
He has been married three times and divorced twice and is currently wed to yoga firm boss Tamiko Bolton - 42 years his junior.
His fortune has been estimated at £5.8billion after he gave away 80 percent of his wealth to charity.
The philanthropist donated £13billion to Open Society Foundations - an international group of charities that works in more than 100 countries on projects focused on refugee relief and public health.
Before the transfer, he had a net worth of around £16.5billion.
Why is 'George Soros dead' trending?
Yesterday evening a conspiracy theorist going by the name Cillian tweeted a "breaking" announcement of George Soros's death - attributing the news to Politics For All Ireland, another conspiracy account.
His tweet from the handle CilComLFC has been seen by nearly 600,000 people - many of whom appear to have fallen for the grim hoax.
In fact, Soros is alive and well.
It's not the first time Soros' "death" made headline news.
In 2013, Reuters accidentally published an obituary on Soros.
The news agency realized it was a death hoax and quickly pulled the report.
What have people said about 'George Soros dead' trending?
Thousands of conspiracy theorists from across the world celebrated Soros's "death" on Twitter after falling for the ghoulish hoax.
The Jewish financier has been the target of paranoid anti-Semitic fantasies.
Some of these conspiracies have been peddled by the government in Hungary, the country Soros fled during the Holocaust.
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Is George Soros Dead? What's Behind the Viral Rumor
Several social media accounts have shared posts claiming that George Soros, the Hungarian-born American investor and philanthropist, has died of a heart attack.
Dozens of posts in English, Turkish and other languages featuring the explosive claim accumulated hundreds of thousands of views since Sunday, May 14, despite offering little evidence to support it.
Soros, who is 92 years old, has been a frequent target of antisemitism, conspiracy theories, personal attacks by authoritarian political leaders such as Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, as well as numerous "death" hoaxes throughout his life.
With the latest unevidenced claim gaining traction even as no officials statements have been made, Newsweek Misinformation Watch looked into the origins of this narrative and who might be behind it.
The rumor of Soros's purported passing began circulating on May 14, when a number of accounts claimed that he had died as a result of either a stroke or a heart attack.
One of the most prominent social media users to make the claim was the account of Matt Wallace, a right-wing influencer and crypto investor, who has been accused of sharing misleading content and investment "scams" in the past (allegations that he denies).
"Rumors are circulating that George Soros just died of a heart attack," Wallace's account tweeted on Monday, May 15, without specifying a source (tweet archived here). He later responded to a tweet by linking to his own video titled "George Soros Life in Prison."
Just a few hours earlier Wallace targeted the billionaire in another tweet, claiming misleadingly that Soros "has sold all of his Tesla shares" because he is "angry at Elon Musk for restoring free speech to Twitter."
While it is true that Soros Fund Management, his family office, has slashed its stakes in Tesla Inc, the fund also offloaded its wider electric vehicle portfolio in the first quarter of 2023, including Tesla's rival Rivian Automotive.
There is no evidence to suggest that the investment shift was somehow related to the Musk's purchase of—or content policies on—Twitter.
Still, while Wallace's tweet about Soros' purported demise has been seen by nearly 300,000 users, it was not the original source of the claim.
A number of other tweets, in English and Turkish, also gained significant traction.
"George Soros is dead. On an evening like this," one tweet said in Turkish on May 14, viewed 725,000 times.
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Several posts only included what looks like a screenshot of a news article simply stating "George Soros dead."
This is a common misinformation tool, as headlines from self-proclaimed or non-credible "news" outlets can be cropped and shared as images without the necessary context, making them harder to identify and fact check.
That appeared to be the case here, too. A search for the outlet appears to lead to a report in "World Bulletin," which labels itself as "News From Turkey and Islamic World." The website appears to publish a mix of English and Turkish-language content, some of which ventures into conspiracist territory.
The article's sole source for the claim is stated to be "Politics For All Ireland." The outlet also referenced another tweet making the controversial claim in a May 14 post, in English, by the account with the Twitter handle "Cillian," which features a host of conspiracy theorist and anti-globalist tweets in its feed.
The Politics For All Ireland account appears to belong to an obscure blog proclaiming itself as a "news organisation based in Ireland that brings thousands of people the latest breaking news from across the country."
It offers no information about its ownership, affiliations or any other background information that would suggest it is a legitimate news outlet. Nor does it appear to feature any content on its Wordpress page. Its last tweet is dated February 1, 2023, and Newsweek was unable to find the claim about Soros in its Twitter feed.
While Newsweek has been unable to trace the provenance of the underlying claim to any single tweet (though one of the posts in Turkish most likely originated it), no legitimate news organization has reported or verified the rumor. The outlets that were cited as "source" were either shown not to be legitimate news media, or have not actually made the said claim (and were cited misleadingly).
As of May 15, Newsweek found no evidence to corroborate the Soros "death" or health issues claims.
"George Soros is alive and healthy. Rumors on social media that he suffered a heart attack and died are false," a spokesperson for the Open Society Foundations, founded by Soros, told Newsweek in an email.
Hoax "death" claims involving prominent celebrities are a common feature of the social media misinformation landscape and occur on a daily basis. The claims are often picked up and amplified before they are debunked (sometimes after the damage is already done).
Soros himself has been targeted by such claims on multiple occasions, including in 2013 when his "obituary" was published prematurely and by accident on the Reuters website. The fake obituary resurfaced (the tweet has since been deleted) again in 2022 after being reshared and amplified by misinformation-spouting accounts on social media.
Other misleading claims about Soros that have been debunked by Newsweek include the video falsely purporting to show him meeting Hilary Clinton in the 1980s, and one that misleadingly cropped his comment about Ron DeSantis to promote a narrative that he endorsed the Florida governor for 2024 Republican nomination.