Donald Trump's Glowing Orb

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About

Donald Trump's Glowing Orb, also known as Trump Orb, refers to a lit globe that United States president Donald Trump was photographed touching while visiting Saudi Arabia in late May 2017. After the picture was released on Twitter, many joked that the bizarre pose appeared ominous and disturbing.

Origin

On May 21st, 2017, Donald Trump, Saudi Arabian king Salman and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi held a ceremony to launch the opening of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. During the ceremony, the three men joined together to place their hands on a large, glowing globe in the center of the room (shown below).

That day, the @SaudiEmbassyUSA^[1] Twitter feed posted a photograph of the men touching the globe in which many of the countries were obscured by their hands (shown below).

Spread

That day, the photograph was widely circulated on Twitter, with many expressing confusion about the context of the photo. Additionally, the photograph was captioned with various jokes mocking the bizarre pose.

Meanwhile, The Church of Satan retweeted the photo with the caption "For clarification, this is not a Satanic ritual" (shown below, left).^[2] Within 24 hours, the tweet received upwards of 52,000 likes and 33,000 retweets. Also on May 21st, Twitter user @nice_mustard pointed out a tweet posted nine days prior about Trump touching a "pulsing orb" (shown below, right).

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to the photo, including The Washington Post,^[3] The Guardian,^[4] The Daily Dot,^[5] Bustle,^[6] Breitbart,^[7] Huffpost^[8] and UpRoxx.^[9]

Nordic Prime Minister Photo

On May 30th, five Prime Ministers of Norway met to discuss how to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. To mark the occasion the Prime Ministers were photographed all touching a soccer ball (shown below).

The photograph's resemblance to Trump's Orb photo immediately caught Twitter users' attention, though it is unclear if the Prime Ministers were intentionally trolling Trump. The moment was covered by Twitter Moments^[10] that day.

Trump Possesses The Orb

On March 4th, 2020, The Guardian^[11] reported that Trump is in possession of the orb, but keeps it hidden in case of scandal. The factoid was published by Ben Hubbard in his upcoming book MBS. According to Hubbard, “It sat in a hallway for a number of days, where diplomats passing by would pose for photos… someone apparently worried that the photos would make their way online and cause a scandal, so the orb was hidden away in embassy storage.”