An unfounded claim that President Donald Trump was considering pausing the implementation of sizable tariffs briefly sent U.S. stocks skyrocketing on Monday, an indication of just how volatile the current economic situation has become.
Just after 10:10 a.m., a headline was posted by several well-followed finance-focused accounts on X that said White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett had indicated that Trump was considering a 90-day pause — China excluded — on his sweeping tariffs plan.
Though unverified, the headline was instantly digested by investors — many of whom operate through algorithmic software that can parse information for buy or sell signals — and sent stocks soaring, reversing an earlier massive sell-off.
The unfounded headline got an extra boost when it was mentioned at about 10:14 a.m. ET on CNBC in an effort to explain the market’s moves (with one anchor noting the source of the claim was unclear) and then included the headline in an on-air graphic. The move resulted in trillions in gains in stock-market value in a matter of minutes.
Yet it soon became clear that no one could trace the origins of the alleged news. Hassett appeared earlier Monday on Fox News but did not mention a 90-day pause — though he was asked about one.
The White House later said on X that the claim was false, and one of the administration’s accounts reposted Hassett’s Fox News appearance to clarify that no such pause had been floated.
An attempt to create a timeline of Monday morning’s events points to the errant statement first spreading on X, then making its way to CNBC and Reuters. A CNBC spokesperson said: “As we were chasing the news of the market moves in real-time, we aired unconfirmed information in a banner. Our reporters quickly made a correction on air.” (CNBC and NBC News share a parent company, NBCUniversal.)
A Reuters spokesperson said in an email: "Reuters, drawing from a headline on CNBC, published a story on April 7 saying White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett had said that President Donald Trump was considering a 90-day tariff pause on all countries except China. The White House denied the report. Reuters has withdrawn the incorrect report and regrets its error."
A search of X shows that the first post mentioning Hassett and the pause came at 10:11 a.m. appears to have come from the account @yourfavorito, a finance-focused account with relatively few followers that regularly posts headlines about daily business developments. Identical or near-identical language was later posted by larger accounts, including some that are well followed in the finance world. Some of those posts have since been deleted.
The account that appears to have been the first to post the all-caps headline, which goes by a pseudonym, told NBC News their post was a reaction to seeing the headline on CNBC and Reuters, and pointed to a Reuters headline posted at 10:20 a.m., nine minutes after their own post.
When asked over direct message if they had any evidence of a CNBC or Reuters post from before 10:11 a.m., they did not respond. The person behind the account said publicly that they had traded on the market’s swing.
However, NBC News could not confirm that the account was the originator of the headline.
The person behind the account later posted that “trading desks started sending out this headline at 10:09” and that they were reacting to it.
One screenshot of what appeared to be a note from Goldman Sachs with the false headline circulated on social media in the aftermath of the market swings, but a spokesperson for the bank said it had been scouring its email traffic and found no evidence that was authentic.
While it remains unclear exactly who first started the false Hassett claim, the swing highlights just how sensitive markets are to any hope that Trump will back down from his tariff plan, which dramatically overshadows any existing duties and has been roundly criticized by global leaders and business magnates.
But it is not the first time a social media rumor has dramatically affected markets. In 2012, The Associated Press’ Twitter account was hacked and used to post an erroneous headline of a bombing at the White House. U.S. markets dropped sharply on the post.
