“Stay teachable.”
“Find a mentor.”
“Don’t spend what you don’t have.”
If this strikes you as good advice, you’re not alone. @warrenbuffet99, an account purporting to belong to billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett, has been tweeting that and similar guidance over the past 48 hours, and hundreds of thousands of Twitter users have retweeted it.
Just two problems: That’s not how Warren Buffett spells his name, and that’s not Warren Buffett.
A spokesperson for Buffett confirmed to ABC News that the account, which is missing the second “t” in Buffett’s last name, is fake.
The account does not identify itself in its bio as a parody account, which is apparently a violation of Twitter’s guidelines. The social media platform has not yet returned ABC’s request for comment.
Created in December 2016, the account does not appear to have started tweeting until Saturday afternoon, when it blasted out a list of “signs of maturity.”
That tweet was shared more than 2,000 times, a total quickly dwarfed by the response to subsequent life tips, as the account’s follower base has now grown to nearly 50,000.
At least three tweets, including “advice for the all the young people” and a list of habits used by “the smartest people I know,” garnered more than 20,000 retweets within hours of being posted. Television anchors, British lawmakers, sports radio hosts and more approvingly retweeted the lists, with comments such as “Good advice” or “Great advice from one of the smartest people in the world.”
1 saying ‘thank you’
2 apologizing when wrong
3 showing up on time
4 being nice to strangers
5 listening without interrupting
6 admitting you were wrong
7 following your dreams
8 being a mentor
9 learning and using people’s names
10 holding doors open
1 Don’t get easily offended
2 Read more than they talk
3 Enjoy intelligent discourse
4 Quickly admit when they’re wrong
5 Comfortable changing their opinion
6 Surround themselves w/ intelligence
7 Seek to understand every perspective on a topic
Despite the retweets, plenty of people remain unfooled. Under “life advice for young people,” one Twitter user wrote, “Make sure it’s actually Warren Buffet.” And under “Here’s what’s cool,” which featured advice such as being respectful, punctual and gracious, another user suggested “using your own identity for your Twitter account.”
Alas, all those showing up in the fake account’s mentions are pretty clearly not listening to the account’s advice, which includes “Don’t respond to nonsense.”
