Alan Sugar has been criticised for sharing a coronavirus conspiracy theory on social media. The Apprentice star tweeted a claim purported to be from a Japanese scientist saying that Covid-19 was man-made.
Independent fact-checking charity Full Fact later debunked the claims. A statement on their website said: “Various posts on Facebook claim that the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Professor Tasuku Honjo has said that coronavirus is ‘not natural’. “The claim was also shared on Twitter, including by Lord Sugar. “We’ve been asked to check this by lots of readers. “This claim is false.” Lord Sugar later tweeted to say that he believed his earlier tweet to be “fake news”, but defended his decision to share it.