A viral claim suggesting that former first daughter Chelsea Clinton criticized Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for having sexual relations with one of his female employees is found to be fake. It was also speculated that Chelsea had deleted the tweet in which she had called the unidentified employee an 'underling.'
The steam surrounding the impending divorce of the power couple Bill and Melinda Gates gained momentum after it was reported that the philanthropist had an affair with a female employee at Microsoft almost 20 years ago. The staffer had even written to the company's board about the affair following which an investigation was launched.
Did Chelsea Clinton Ridicule Bill Gates For Cheating?
A screenshot of a tweet from the account of Chelsea, daughter of former US President Bill Clinton, is making rounds on the social media pages.
The tweet reads: "The more I hear about Bill Gates behavior the more ashamed for him I feel. What kind of man pursues a physical relationship with an underling and has relations with her in their office???"
It was also being claimed by some of the internet users that Chelsea had deleted the tweet later. The social media was seen reacting to the viral image, with several mentioning her father's affair with former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
The affair not only threatened the marriage of the former US President but nearly brought down his presidency and finally led to his impeachment in 1998.
"Throwing rocks in her own glass house!!," tweeted a user as another added, "Thats awesome.. Chelsea makes a great Democrat. Serious hypocrite and fails to mention daddy did the same thing."
"Chelsea needs to read some history and being from the area where Bill started his career. He has been jumping on anything with two legs for decades. He just conveniently did not change with DC," read another tweet.
"When you hear a topic of morality, honesty and ethics I'm rolling on the floor that a Clinton would chime in!" opined a user.
What is the Truth Behind the Viral Image?
Debunking the claim, Snopes, a fact checking website, said that it is not a genuine tweet from Chelsea Clinton. Stating that the tweet does not appear anywhere on her timeline, it reported that there is also no evidence that this message was posted and then deleted by Clinton.
The outlet reported that the message appears to exist purely in screenshot format, which indicates it was created with a digital-editing program or with any of the many fake tweet-generator programs.
Lead Stories too claimed the tweet in the image to be to fake. The outlet reported that it conducted a reverse image search using Yandex and also tried using keywords "Bill Gates," "man pursues a physical relationship" and "relations with her in their office", but did not find the tweet, but only the screenshot of the tweet.
