# Rahul Ligma And Daniel Johnson Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson are the gag names two pranksters used on October 28, 2022, when they posed as laid-off Twitter data engineers outside the company's San Francisco headquarters after Elon Musk's takeover. CNBC and Bloomberg interviewed them on camera and published the story before catching the crude ligma joke baked into the fake surname. ## Overview Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson are the fake names used by two men who tricked business reporters into thinking they were data engineers just fired from Twitter on the day Elon Musk closed his acquisition of the company[1]. The pair walked up to a scrum of camera crews outside Twitter's San Francisco headquarters holding cardboard boxes stacked with desk clutter, gave sober-sounding quotes about six years of service and a Tesla payment they could no longer make, then walked off before anyone checked an employee directory[2]. The last name Ligma is a long-running online setup joke that reads aloud as "lick my," with the payoff usually landing on testicles[3]. CNBC's Deirdre Bosa published quotes from the pair inside a same-day story about the Musk deal, and Bloomberg ran a similar piece, before both outlets pulled the interview material once the reference clicked[3]. The stunt became one of the defining images of the chaotic first hours of Musk-era Twitter and is still cited whenever a reporter gets caught chasing a doorstep source without verification[4]. ## How It Spread Between about 3 p.m. and 4:36 p.m. EST that same afternoon, Bosa posted follow-up tweets walking the story back, first noting that "some questions being raised about whether these are really twitter employees" and admitting corporate communications was not returning calls[4]. The Verge broke the debunk publicly after searching the Twitter email system and finding no matching accounts, a detail then picked up by the Daily Mail and other outlets that afternoon[2]. CNBC updated its article at 8:11 p.m. EST to strip out the interview portion, adding an editor's note that it could not confirm the identities of the two men[1]. Bloomberg issued its own correction after initially running with the story[3]. On Twitter, mockery landed harder than the original scoop. Reporter Gene Park's line that "tech reporters are absolutely being trolled and they don't know what ligma is" pulled in thousands of likes, and @greg16676935420's summary that Rahul Ligma "was just some random dude with a box that got CNBC with a Ligma Nuts joke" hit more than 190,000 likes in three days[4]. A clip of the Johnson interview shared by @greg_price11 racked up 4.1 million views and 36,000 likes in the same window[4]. Coverage of the fooling itself ran in the Daily Mail, New York Post, Mashable, and Economic Times India within hours[2][3][5]. The capstone came from Musk himself. That evening he quote-tweeted a straight-faced write-up of the prank with "Ligma Johnson had it coming," a post that pulled 659,000 likes and 63,000 retweets in three days[4]. On November 15, 2022, Musk posted a photo of Ligma, Johnson, and himself standing together inside Twitter's San Francisco office, framing it as a welcome visit for the two pranksters; the image cleared 279,000 likes within roughly two hours[4]. ## How to Use The joke works as a template for any moment when a professional gatekeeper (a reporter, a bouncer, a customer service rep) takes an obviously fake name at face value. Posters typically drop "Ligma Johnson had it coming" as a reaction to a bungled news story, or edit a screenshot of the two men with a box into any layoff or firing headline[4]. The core mechanic is the same as the original ligma setup: name a fake person whose surname forces the mark to say the punchline out loud. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Rahul Ligma And Daniel Johnson? They are two pranksters who posed as fired Twitter data engineers outside the company's San Francisco headquarters on October 28, 2022, tricking CNBC and Bloomberg reporters into interviewing them on camera[1]. ### Where did Rahul Ligma And Daniel Johnson come from? The stunt happened at Twitter HQ in San Francisco on the first day of Elon Musk's ownership, when the two men walked up to waiting news crews with cardboard boxes and gave fake names[1]. ### What does Rahul Ligma And Daniel Johnson mean? The name is a callback to the long-running "ligma" online joke, which reads out as "lick my" and usually ends on a testicles punchline; the reporters missed the reference and quoted it as a real surname[3]. ### How do you use Rahul Ligma And Daniel Johnson? The meme is deployed as shorthand for lazy or gullible journalism; posters share the box photo or drop the phrase "Ligma Johnson had it coming" under news stories that failed basic verification[4]. ### Is Rahul Ligma And Daniel Johnson still popular? The clip is treated as a classic media-fail moment and still gets recirculated whenever a reporter is caught believing an unverified doorstep source, though the biggest wave of reposts was in late 2022[4]. ### Which reporter fell for the Rahul Ligma prank? CNBC tech correspondent Deirdre Bosa interviewed the two men and posted a photo of them on Twitter with the line "Entire team of data engineers let go," before publicly walking the claim back later that afternoon[4]. ### Who is the real Rahul Ligma? The prankster later spoke to Know Your Meme through the Twitter account @0interestrates and said the names and the whole bit were improvised on the spot outside Twitter HQ[4]. ### Did Bloomberg also fall for the Twitter layoff hoax? Yes; Bloomberg initially reported the pair as genuine fired employees and issued a correction after The Verge and other outlets confirmed no Twitter records matched the men[3]. ### What did Elon Musk say about Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson? Musk quote-tweeted a story about the hoax with "Ligma Johnson had it coming," a post that pulled about 659,000 likes and 63,000 retweets within three days[4]. ### Did Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson ever meet Elon Musk in person? Yes; on November 15, 2022, Musk posted a photo of himself with the two pranksters inside Twitter's San Francisco headquarters, framing it as a welcome visit[4]. ### How did The Verge debunk the Twitter engineer story? The Verge searched Twitter's internal employee email system for the names given by the two men, found no matching accounts, and reported that the pair did not actually work there[2]. ## References 1. [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/28/musk-first-day-owning-twitter-leads-to-havoc-and-possible-hoax-.html]() 2. [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11365633/Two-Twitter-data-engineers-claim-laid-outside-HQ.html]() 3. [https://mashable.com/article/prank-media-twitter-layoffs-elon-musk]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/rahul-ligma-and-daniel-johnson]() 5. [https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/prankster-rahul-ligma-poses-as-laid-off-twitter-employee-trick-media-this-is-what-elon-musk-said/articleshow/95162357.cms]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/rahul-ligma-and-daniel-johnson Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library