STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Satire Label

Did McDonald's stock climb 200 percent after Donald Trump made a campaign appearance at one of its franchises? No, that's not true: This comes from a website that regularly publishes fake stories, and the original article was clearly labeled as "satire." McDonald's shares actually dropped after Trump visited one of its restaurants.

The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on November 1, 2024. It showed an image of Trump supposedly carrying a huge bag of french fries above a caption that read:

McDonald's Stocks Skyrocket 200%
'Making McDonald's Great Again'

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Nov 13 14:30:46 2024 UTC)

Now president-elect, Trump made a campaign stop at a McDonald's in a Philadelphia suburb on October 20, 2024 (archived here). He donned an apron, learned how to operate a deep fryer and spoke with reporters through the restaurant's drive-thru window.

The claim that investors became hungry for McDonald's shares following Trump's appearance has no basis in reality. The first comment on the Facebook post linked to the original article about the supposedly surging stock (archived here), published by a website called Esspots on October 22, 2024. The two topic tags below the headline both read "SATIRE." This is what the headline and tags, highlighted in red by Lead Stories, looked like:

(Source: Esspots screenshot taken on Wed Nov 13 16:16:12 2024 UTC)

On its "About Us" page (archived here), Esspots explicitly tells readers not to take its stories seriously:

Welcome to the US page of Esspots (A Subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com specializing in Satire and Parody News), your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary about the United States of America. Our team of writers and editors is dedicated to bringing you the latest and greatest in fake news and absurdity, all with a healthy dose of humor and satire.

Still, some Facebook users rehashed Esspots' story about McDonald's share-price hike without noting the satire disclaimer -- for example, here (screenshot archived here) and here (screenshot archived here).

McDonald's stock actually dropped following Trump's appearance at the franchise. According to Google Finance, the burger giant's shares closed at $316.56 on October 18, 2024, the last day of trading before Trump's campaign visit on October 20. By October 22, 2024 -- the day Esspots published its article -- it had dropped to $314.69. On November 6, 2024, the day after the election, McDonald's shares were trading at $294.00. That's a decline of 7 percent from October 18, not a 200 percent increase.

(Source: Google Finance screenshot, with price quotes by Lead Stories, taken on Wed Nov 13 18:21:15 2024 UTC)

More Lead Stories fact checks on claims involving Esspots can be found here. Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims involving McDonald's can be found here. Our fact checks of claims about the 2024 U.S. presidential election are here.