America's poster-in-chief has a new challenger.
While most Iranians are barred from the internet, one of the country’s rising hard-line figures is using social media to take on President Donald Trump.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, 64, is adopting an increasingly Trumpian approach to wartime communication, posting English-language snark and memes in an apparent attempt to counter Trump's influence on news coverage and financial markets.
Ghalibaf, who is a decade and a half younger than Trump, favors a snappier, less all-caps style than Trump, who has posted a staggering 6,800 Truth Social messages in the past year.
Iran and its supporters are making a wider push in a growing information war, flooding the internet with memes and AI-generated content faking attacks on American bases. State media has even got in on the act, taunting Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Heads-up,” Ghalibaf told his almost half-million followers Sunday on X. The “pre-market so-called ‘news’ or ‘Truth’ is often just a setup for profit-taking,” he said, his latest accusation that Trump's posts on Truth Social are a concerted effort to move markets, either for profit or to stem the war's impact on surging energy prices.
The U.S. government has strongly denied allegations of insider trading.
Ghalibaf urged followers to “do the opposite” of what Trump’s messages indicate if they, too, want to turn a profit.
“If they pump it, short it. If they dump it, go long,” he said. “You know the drill.”
In a more succinct caption, Ghalibaf posted a picture earlier Sunday, was geolocated by NBC News, that shows an American airborne warning and control system (or AWACS) aircraft with its rear blown off at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Alongside the picture of the ruined plane, Ghalibaf wrote: “sustained only minor damage,” with three emojis conveying the “just a little bit” pinching hand gesture. Initial reports had indicated the plane sustained minor damage in an Iranian attack.
Ghalibaf has risen to greater prominence after the assassinations of a phalanx of his fellow top officials in Israeli-U.S. airstrikes. Among them was the late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, creating a power vacuum largely filled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a powerful paramilitary, political and economic group.
Ghalibaf came through the ranks of the guard himself and is believed to be among the inner circle of Mojtaba Khamenei, the ayatollah's son and successor. The younger Khamenei has not appeared in person after Iran said he too was injured in strikes.
According to Trump, it was Ghalibaf who allowed 20 oil tankers to pass through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. “He’s the one who authorized the ships to me,” Trump told the Financial Times newspaper.
But in public, Ghalibaf has been far more hostile to Trump and his forces.
In a message Sunday marking 30 days since the start of the war, he said Iran was "waiting for American soldiers to enter on the ground so they can set them ablaze."
Meanwhile, he has accused Trump of trying to "jawbone" the oil market, using public statements and social media to reassure investors and prevent further price rises.
Other posts included his likening the "No Kings" marches across American cities this weekend to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
“Welcome to the party we started 47 years ago,” he wrote. “This is the people of Iran, and we approve this message.”
And he has ridiculed Trump's apparently shifting war aims, suggesting that his goals have now narrowed to reopening the Strait of Hormuz — which was the case before the U.S. and Israel started bombing.
“They’re playing 6D chess again!” Ghalibaf wrote alongside three clapping emojis.
Trump has been more active than ever on social media in his second term, including posting lengthy all-caps screeds offering vacillating updates on the war.
Not long before markets were due to open Monday, Trump hailed what he said was “great progress” in talks, though he also threatened to obliterate Iran’s civilian water and energy infrastructure if a deal isn’t reached soon. Ghalibaf and other Iranian officials have frequently denied such progress.
Though Ghalibaf is seen as a relative hard-liner, he has never been afraid to adapt his message to his audience.
“Ghalibaf exhibits a dual posture — pragmatic when engaging pragmatic counterparts and hard-line when confronting hard-line adversaries,” Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a Washington-based think tank, told NBC News last week.
He is among 1% of Iranians currently able to use the internet, according to the monitoring group NetBlocks.
Only "regime apparatchiks are allowed online,” NetBlocks said.
