Forbes didn't put Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on its cover. Image is fabricated | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: Image shows Iran leader Ali Khamenei on Forbes cover as 'the most powerful man in the world'

An April 17 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows what appears to be the cover of a major U.S. magazine bestowing an honor on Iran’s leader.

“BREAKING: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is featured on the cover of Forbes magazine with the caption ‘The Most Powerful Man in the World,’” reads the post's caption.

It received more than 10,000 likes in eight days. Similar versions received hundreds of likes on Instagram and were shared widely on Facebook and on X, formerly Twitter, before being deleted.

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Our rating: Altered

The image is a fabrication. No such cover exists in Forbes’ repository of past editions. The magazine has not issued those rankings since 2018.

No mention of Khamenei in Forbes since 2022

The purported cover in the Instagram post bears the date of April 15, two days after Iran attacked Israel with a retaliatory wave of drones and missiles. The image contains clear references to those strikes, pointing out that military targets were hit and proclaiming Khamenei “the most powerful man” in “the definitive ranking of the most power (sic) people in the world.”

But it’s not authentic, as the obvious typo also indicates. Khamenei has not appeared on the publication’s cover and was not picked as the world’s most powerful man. His name has not appeared in a Forbes story since October 2022.

Fact check: Image of Obama bowing to Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is altered

A closer look at the purported cover also shows evidence of the fabrication.

First, Forbes will publish six editions in 2024 – one every other month – according to its print editorial calendar. It did not produce one with the specific date shown in the image. The April/May 2024 edition shows billionaire Todd Boehly on the cover, not Khamenei.

The image shown in the social media post does not appear in the magazine’s vault of past editions, and does not have the look or feel of the authentic covers. Those have the publication’s name in a smaller, more compact typeface with larger fonts used in the cover lines.

Additionally, Forbes has not published its list of the world’s most powerful people since 2018. Chinese President Xi Jinping was No. 1 on the list that year, while Khamenei was No. 17. The magazine is scheduled to post to its website its list of the 100 most powerful women in the world on Dec. 11, according to its 2024 digital editorial calendar.

The attacks by Iran have been the source of extensive misinformation on social media. USA TODAY has debunked false claims that none of Iran’s rockets hit Israel, that Israel’s Nevatim Air Base was “completely destroyed” and that a video shows the attack.

USA TODAY reached out to several Facebook and Instagram users who shared the post but did not immediately receive responses.

Reuters and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Forbes didn't pick Iran's Khamenei as 'most powerful man' | Fact check

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