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Post misrepresents satirical petition as $1 trillion offer for California | Fact check

Joedy McCreary   Paste BN
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The claim: Denmark offered $1 trillion to buy California

A Feb. 11 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) claims to share news of a Scandinavian nation’s attempt to purchase a U.S. state.

“BREAKING: Denmark Just offered Trump $1 trillion to buy California from the US,” reads part of the text both in the post and in the image, which is a screenshot of a post on X.

The Instagram post received more than 800 likes in a day. The X post was reposted thousands of times.

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Our rating: False

The Danish government has made no such offer. The claim misrepresents a satirical attempt to raise money to purchase the state as a serious proposal.

Post presents satirical petition as legitimate

President Donald Trump has made clear his interest in acquiring Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, for national security purposes. Those overtures have infuriated Danish leaders, who have repeatedly – and, at times, profanely – said the territory is not for sale.

Denmark did not, however, counter that proposal by offering $1 trillion for California. There is no record of the Danish government making such an offer. While the claim traces to an online petition with a disclaimer that makes its tongue-in-cheek nature clear, it is presented in the post as a legitimate development.

Fact check: No, Trump didn’t post about giving Staten Island to New Jersey

According to the Denmarkification website, organizers want to raise $1 trillion – “give or take a few billion” – as part of a supposed crowdfunding campaign to buy the state directly from Trump. The petition has gathered more than 200,000 signatures, the website says. It is operated by a self-identified half-Swiss and half-French man with no ties to Denmark named Xåvier Dutoit, Paste BN previously reported.

It is not, however, a serious effort, its operator said.

"The Denmarkification team has been blown away and humbled by how many people around the world find our joke funny – and how many hilarious, thoughtful conversations we were able to spark," Dutoit told Paste BN in an email.

While a signer must provide contact information, the website has no mechanism to collect donations and contains no record of any funds being received, with Dutoit saying he is instead directing potential donors to programs that raise money for victims of the Southern California wildfires. Nor is there any evidence of anything resembling a formal offer to Trump. A disclaimer on the website reads, “This campaign is 100% real… in our dreams,” and widespread media reports about the petition characterize it as a joke.

The social media posts are an example of what could be called "stolen satire,” in which content created as satire and presented that way originally is reposted in a way that makes it appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.

Paste BN previously debunked false claims that Denmark announced an interest in buying the United States and imposed “500% tariffs” on Ozempic exports to the U.S.

In response to an inquiry from Paste BN, the Instagram user who shared the post said the claim is based on the petition – not any action purportedly taken by the Danish government – but did not acknowledge its satirical nature. The X user who shared it could not be reached.

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(This story was updated to add new information)

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