Trump didn't say he's seen 'dark matter' and has 'best understanding of it'

For several months in 2025, a quote attributed to U.S. President Donald Trump spread on Facebook and Reddit, in which he purportedly claimed to have seen "dark matter" and that he has "got the best understanding of it."

The quote appeared in numerous forms, but one meme posted on Facebook on May 29 featured a picture of the president alongside the full alleged quote:

(Facebook user "Christine Kondolf DeSena")

The verbiage appears to have originated in a post on Reddit in early 2025. In that version, Trump is quoted as estimating the amount of dark matter in the universe at 27% and saying: "People come up to me with tears in their eyes, astrophysicists, they say, 'Sir, how do you know so much about dark matter?' and I tell them, 'Because I'm like Einstein, but with better hair." 

This is the wording of the original meme, verbatim:

I know dark matter. Nobody has ever seen dark matter, but I do. I see it, folks, I see it better than anyone. It should be called bright matter if I can see it. Scientists, they talk about it, they say, "Oh, it's invisible, it's mysterious," but I get it, okay? I get it like nobody else. It's tremendous, really tremendous stuff - 20% of the universe, they say, maybe more or less, but I know it's huge. I've got the best understanding of it, believe me. People come up to me with tears in their eyes, astrophysicists, they say, "Sir, how do you know so much about dark matter?" and I tell them, "Because I'm like Albert Epstein, but with better hair." 

The meme was posted by Reddit user yukiohana, who later explained in a comment, "Grok wrote most of it. ChatGPT wouldn't write parodies of Trump ?." It appears to be a spoof of the many statements Trump has actually made using similar wording and structure, for example, "I'm very highly educated. I know words, I know the best words. But there's no better word than stupid." 

For these reasons, we have rated this quote as originated as satire. We reached out to yukiohana for comment and await a reply. 

Needless to say, there is no evidence Trump made the above statement about dark matter — no evidence of him producing this passage in speeches, interviews or on his social media accounts. 

Searching for variations of the quote on Google uncovered no reliable sources connecting it to the president. Likewise, trying sections such as, "I know dark matter. Nobody has ever seen dark matter, but I do," or, "Because I'm like Einstein, but with better hair," also produced no such results.

Roll Call's archive of Trump's social media on X and TruthSocial also found no posts resembling the various forms of the passage, nor did searching for "dark matter" on his X profile or on Trump's Truth, another website dedicated to archiving his Truth Social posts.

If Trump had said this in public it would have been widely covered by news media publications.

Although it appeared as early as March 2025, the claim spread again after the Trump administration proposed funding cuts to NASA in May. In a Guardian report, scientists reportedly warned that these cuts would result in research laboratory closures, the end of deep space missions and an end to studying the secrets of black holes, dark matter and more.