Donald Trump “demanded” an apology from Forbes magazine after it dropped him from its list of the 400 wealthiest people in the US for the second time in three years.
“I hereby demand a full apology from the failing Forbes magazine,” the former president wrote on Wednesday 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.
Forbes released its Trump-free list last week, saying the his net worth was down $600m from a year before. Trump has been on the list since the 1990s, other than in 2021.
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 and assorted civil threats.
In that post from Monday, Trump concluded: “So much for Forbes!” But as usual he could not resist returning to the well, using his Wednesday post to complain about the “writer, Dan Alexander, for the many false and libelous 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.
On Wednesday, 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.”
Another writer, Adam Klasfeld of the Messenger, said: “If you were wondering why Trump suddenly went after Forbes and Dan Alexander, he posted his swipe hours after their fact-checking emails about his net worth … were entered into evidence” in a New York state civil trial concerning alleged business fraud.
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.
In his Truth Social post, 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.
In May, a deal was announced that would see Austin Russell, a 28-year-old US entrepreneur, take an 82% stake in Forbes while the previous majority owner, a Hong Kong-based investment firm, retained a minority stake.
Trump still makes one Forbes list. On Wednesday, the magazine’s real-time list of global billionaires placed him 1,201st.
