No, Harley Davidson's CEO did not call Trump a moron, but don't tell Twitter that

Did the CEO of Harley Davidson bash President Trump, calling him a moron?

The answer is no, he didn’t call Trump a moron. But, if you were one of the tens of thousands of people who retweeted or liked this viral tweet you may believe he did.

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According to this 100 percent false tweet, the CEO of Harley Davidson Matthew Levatich blasted Donald Trump for starting a trade war and blamed him for their decision to move some of their operations overseas.

It is true that the motorcycle company is blaming the resulting EU tariffs for their decision to move some production overseas. And the President did take to, where else, Twitter to voice his displeasure with Harley Davidson for the decision to move production. This does perhaps lend a little credence to the fact that, maybe, a CEO would put out some sort of statement defending his company from the attacks.

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But that Harley Davidson statement, the one that’s spreading like wildfire on the web, is false. It’s completely untrue.

The original tweet is from a Twitter user who goes by Judy Tinsleman with the handle @tinsleman. The Twitter account was created this month, according to the creation date listed in the account's bio. A quick search on websites like PeopleFinder and Spokeo bring up zero results for a person going by the name Judy Tinsleman in the United States. Before the Harley Davidson CEO went viral, the account had barely any Twitter followers. The account seems to have tweeted various made-up “breaking news” tweets with varying levels of success in spreading through Twitter earlier this month.

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On the same day @tinsleman tweeted the fake Harley Davidson CEO quote, Twitter published a blog post detailing how they’re taking action against spam bots and malicious accounts. In the post, they explained how they’re tackling many of the problems with the platform. Yet just looking at @tinsleman’s account, from hashtag-stuffing to multiple spammy @ mentions, it's easy to see a number of warning signs that should have tipped off Twitter according to their own post!

Twitter users believing the Harley Davidson CEO statement are now copying the fake quote to tweet from their own accounts. Those tweets are racking up thousands of retweets on their own, too.

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Celebrities are also spreading the fake quote.

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The spreading of this fake quote is getting so out of hand that Harley Davidson has put out a statement via their own Twitter account calling the quote a complete fabrication.

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At the time of this the original tweet with the fake Harley Davidson CEO quote has 27,725 retweets. The real Harley Davidson statement debunking the quote has 750 retweets.