As a gift to the culture for their last day of work, a Twitter employee deleted President Donald Trump’s account.
ABC News reports the moment happened Thursday (Nov. 3). The account was deactivated for 11 minutes, with his tweet beforehand addressing the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Twitter released a statement about the incident confirming that the account was secure. “The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored,” the statement read. “We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.”
The investigation revealed that the account was actively deleted by an employee during their last day on the job.
Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
A former senior employee at the company told the folks over BuzzFeed News that plenty of employees have access to delete accounts. “It’s one click if you have the rights to access the tool,” they said. The notion worried some but not enough higher ups to make changes to the protocol. “There was discussion that for verified accounts or high profile ones, there’d be special protections (i.e. “2 keys”) but it was never implemented,” they added.
While Twitter’s headquarters fell into shambles, Trump continued to tweet and tweet.
The @TuckerCarlson opening statement about our once cherished and great FBI was so sad to watch. James Comey's leadership was a disaster!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017
Meanwhile, other users have tried to find the person responsible for the incident to give them a standing ovation.
When you delete Trump’s twitter account on you last day at Twitter pic.twitter.com/51f5FP3Tre
— HoodieXillaValentine (@BlogXilla) November 3, 2017
For a brief moment Trump’s twitter was down & outside my window white nationalists were paying reparations to black people.
Then I awoke.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) November 2, 2017
For a brief moment Trump’s twitter was down & outside my window white nationalists were paying reparations to black people.
Then I awoke.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) November 2, 2017
Trump’s Twitter was deactivated by a “Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day.”
!!! pic.twitter.com/9xYfL9SAVE
— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) November 3, 2017
If it makes you feel any better, not many of us use Twitter to begin with.
UPDATE: 11/3 10:59 AM EST
Trump reacted to the employee’s rogue mission on Twitter, but seems to have missed the point of his “impact.”
My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017
