Twitter Ligma Media Prank

A story about how someone successfully pranked major media outlets by pretending to be a fired Twitter employee during Elon Musk's takeover.

The story starts with a text message: "Yo bro, are you doing anything in the next hour? Wanna help me pull off a stunt? I'm at the gym and I need a box. I'm gonna walk out in front of the Twitter office with a box in my hand - there's hella TV crews outside."

This tech founder grabbed an empty box and a Michelle Obama book, walked out in front of Twitter HQ where news crews were waiting. He posed as a fired employee named "Rahul Ligma" (a popular internet joke). CNBC was the first to report it, showing him looking visibly defeated, claiming he couldn't make his Tesla payments anymore.

Later, he texted: "Bro the media is so dumb. I literally put 5 minutes of planning into this. Even my uncle in India has seen the picture now." When asked if he just saw the cameras and walked out there, he replied "Yeah basically. I got to the gym that's near Twitter's headquarters, I saw all these cameras, so I just went to it."

His partner in the prank, who went by "Daniel Johnson," added to the comedy by saying in an interview: "I just really want to go home, talk to my husband and wife and regroup" - which they noted was "the most San Francisco thing ever."

The prank worked so well that the same photo kept getting spread across all major media outlets, who were eager to report on Twitter employees being fired under Elon Musk's leadership.