Forbes has responded after Former US president, Donald Trump “demanded” an apology from the magazine after it dropped him from its list of the 400 wealthiest people in the US for the second time in three years.
Forbes released its list last week, saying Trump’s net worth was down $600m from a year before. Trump has been on the list since the 1990s, but was removed in 2021.
“I hereby demand a full apology from the failing Forbes magazine,” Trump wrote on Wednesday, October 11 on Truth Social, the reportedly struggling social media platform he set up after being expelled from mainstream platforms over the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
In response, Trump complained about “really dumb writers assigned to hit me hard” and bragged about huge leads in Republican presidential polling he holds despite facing 91 criminal charges.
“So much for Forbes!”
On Wednesday he complained about the “writer, Dan Alexander, for the many false and libellous articles [Forbes] have written about me”.
Alexander, a senior editor at Forbes, is also the author of a 2020 book, White House Inc: How Donald Trump Turned the Presidency Into a Business.
Responding to Trump, Alexander tweeted: “Hey Donald Trump, if you want to point out a single false fact in any of the articles I’ve published about you – or in the book I wrote about you – feel free. In the meantime, I’m going to keep reporting – and carefully fact-checking every word I publish.”
In his post, Trump claimed Forbes “cooperated” with Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general of New York state who sued Trump, his adult sons and his business.
Trump called James “racist and incompetent”, also using a nickname some observers have said may itself be a racist dog whistle. In the court case, however, James has already won a pre-trial partial ruling in which the judge said Trump committed fraud by overstating the value of assets.
Trump also said, falsely, that Forbes was “owned by the communist Chinese Government, and China will do anything to stop Maga”, a reference to his campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.
