Jimmy Wales, an Alabama native and the founder of Wikipedia, is catching heat after he dramatically left his country of residence just because of President Donald Trump’s diplomatic visit to the United Kingdom.
Just hours before Air Force One touched down on Monday morning, Wales tweeted that he was en route to the airport and fleeing the UK.
“I will be back when he leaves,” Wales said.
The tweet has drawn some rather witty rebukes, but the most succinct commenters have summarized the event as “childish” and a “top level tantrum.”
Wales’ tweet has drawn over 1,600 direct responses while only garnering 68 retweets as of 9:00 a.m. CST Monday.
Cliff Sims, the founder of Yellowhammer Multimedia and former director of White House message strategy, told Yellowhammer News, “It must be strange for Trump to realize he’s living rent free inside the heads of people on multiple continents.”
“Imagine being so triggered by the presence of any other person that you’d rearrange your entire week to make sure you were out of the country when they arrived,” Sims emphasized.
Wales is a Huntsville native, where he graduated from Randolph School before earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance from Auburn University and the University of Alabama respectively. He has previously been named to Times’ “The 100 Most Influential People in the World” list.
Later on Monday, Wales retweeted several off-the-wall tweets, including one accusing Trump of being “a traitor and an enemy of the United States.”
That tweet continued to claim of Trump, “When you see Londoners’ disdain for you, just remember it’s because, unlike you, they love America.”
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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