The MAGA curious billionaire owner of TIME magazine has appeased Trump by green-lighting a more flattering cover photo after the president melted down over the last portrait.
In a surprisingly self-conscious Truth Social post, Trump, 79, exploded in anger at TIME’s first attempt. “Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time,” he moaned after the publication released a low-angle shot of him gazing into the distance.
It adorned the front of the magazine’s first of two November issues, and now Trump is getting a second shot.
TIME owner Marc Benioff, who is also CEO of software giant Salesforce, has been considered a rare liberal among tech leaders, but his attempts to embrace the Trump agenda have angered associates.
Trump took issue with the angle and the fact that the photographer, Graeme Sloan, had “disappeared” his hair. “They had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird!”
“I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?” he ranted. The photographer has been contacted for comment.
Sloan, a freelancer, wasn’t called up for the latest cover. That job fell to the more experienced Stephen Voss. His shot —the cover of the second November issue —shows Trump looking serious rather than forlorn. His hair looks much more like it’s attached to his head, and his often bruised hand is tactically placed in a bid, perhaps, to cover both the recurring mark and what has been dubbed his “neck vagina.”
The unflattering shot by Sloan made Trump’s loose neck skin look more pronounced, earning it the unfortunate moniker. “They showed his neck vagina. That’s what he’s really upset about,” Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of left-wing publication MeidasTouch Network, posted on X after Trump’s Truth Social rebuke.
In the new shot, Trump sits at the Resolute Desk in a power pose, his arms folded into a V shape under his chin. Trump’s cankles, too, are concealed. His expression harks back to the famous steely glare he debuted in his 2023 mugshot and subsequent presidential portraits.
The photograph features in a story about Trump’s Gaza peace deal. Notably, the words ‘TRUMP’S WORLD’ feature above the masthead in a large typeface on the cover. Inside, Trump’s hubris matches his body language from the cover.
As part of the wide-ranging inside scoop on the historic amnesty, he mentions the essential ingredient for a lasting peace in the embattled region. “The most important thing,” he told TIME, “is they have to respect the President of the United States. The Middle East has to understand that. It’s almost the President more than the country.”
The new snap comes as TIME owner Marc Benioff threw his weight behind Trump, backing his plans to send National Guard troops to San Francisco. Benioff, who owns Salesforce and has an estimated net worth of $10 billion, told The New York Times he “fully supports” the president.
This caused Democrat donor Ron Conway, a man dubbed the ‘Godfather of Silicon Valley,’ to ditch Salesforce’s philanthropic arm after a decade. “I have expressed candidly to you, repeatedly, in recent days, that I am shocked and disappointed by your comments calling for an unwanted invasion of San Francisco by federal troops,” he said in an email to Benihoff, seen by the Times.
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