No, The Atlantic did not publish an article with the headline ‘Trump is Literally Hitler’

A viral image purporting to show an article from The Atlantic circulated on X Oct. 22 and was quickly amplified by the social media platform’s owner.

"Completely insane story in The Atlantic today," read the Oct. 22 post, which was shared by a pro-Trump X account using the handle @Indian_Bronson at about 7:14 p.m. ET. The post included what appeared to be a screenshot from The Atlantic’s website that showed an article titled, "Trump is literally Hitler."

The article was published at 3:38 p.m. ET Oct. 22, and written by Jeffrey Goldberg, according to the screenshot.  

Before long, it caught Elon Musk’s attention. He reposted the image, sharing it with his more than 202 million followers. 

"They are literally foaming at the mouth," Musk wrote at 7:44 p.m. ET, adding a laughing emoji. Musk has become one of Trump’s most vocal supporters in the last weeks of the 2024 election.

(Screenshots from X)

The Atlantic published no such article. The image appears to be a digital manipulation of a screenshot of a different article the outlet published. 

The Atlantic denounced the viral image in an Oct. 23 statement. 

"The Atlantic did not publish an article with the headline ‘Trump Is Literally Hitler,’" it read. "An image with this fabricated headline is circulating on social media, appearing to show an article published by The Atlantic.

"The fake headline distorts an Atlantic article that was published on October 22, 2024," it read, linking to the legitimate article. At 3:38 p.m., Oct. 22, The Atlantic published an article titled, "Trump: ‘I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.’" The article, written by The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, included an account from Trump’s former chief of staff who said Trump told some people in his inner circle that he wanted the kind of generals that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had. 

Searching The Atlantic’s site for the phrase "Trump is literally Hilter" returned only the publication’s statement rebutting the fabricated image. A Google search of The Atlantic’s site for the phrase yielded the same result.

(Screenshots from Google, The Atlantic)

Using a reverse-image search, we found a designer for The Washington Post had created the graphic art showing Trump and Hitler overlaid on a beige and red background. 

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on November 12, 2024 in a Threads post

“It was just Biden and Trump in 2020” general election ballots.

It accompanied a December 2023 opinion piece 3 titled, "Yes, it’s okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don’t let me stop you."

(Screenshot from The Washington Post)

@Indian_Bronson, whose post with the fabricated image received 17.5 million views and was reposted by Musk, acknowledged that the image wasn’t real on at least two occasions. And community notes — crowdsourced context notes written by X users — were appended to @Indian_Bronson’s original post and Musk’s repost.

"This is not a real article," read the note added to @Indian_Bronson’s post. "No such article with this headline exists on www.theatlantic.com. This is a satirical edit/photoshop of another article released by The Atlantic at the same time (October 22, 2024 3:38 PM ET)." 

A photo shows The Atlantic published a story headlined, "Trump is Literally Hitler." 

The Atlantic published no such article. The image is a manipulation of a screenshot of a real Atlantic article titled "Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had.’" The X user who shared it said the image was "satire." 

We rate this claim False.

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