LAKE MISTAKE

CEO’s Trumpy ‘Lake America’ Post Backfires Spectacularly

Borrowing the president’s social media strategy apparently isn’t a great career choice.

A Michigan-based executive has been fired over her AI slop tribute to President Donald Trump.

Jane Smith was the CEO of Family First Credit Union when she took a trip to Halifax, Canada, with her family and posed at Detroit airport for a happy snap on September 11.

Using ChatGPT, Smith altered the photo so that they were wearing ‘Lake America’ sweaters and posted it to her social media accounts with the caption: “Like our sweat shirts? Not sure Canada will. Lol lol.”

Trump, 80, similarly used AI-generated slop to tease his petulant plan to rename Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’ during his self-provoked feud with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney over trade and tariffs in August.

He then pressured Apple Maps to change the name in the company’s maps app, despite opposition from all sides of politics. Google has also adopted ‘Lake America’ on its maps for American users.

MAGA faithful loved the idea, flocking to social media to like and share Trump’s numerous posts about the plan, including one video of Trumpified Canadian geese wielding guns and parading around ‘Lake America’.

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But the backlash to Smith’s post was swift. A Canadian breaking news account wrote about the image on Instagram, at first reporting that the sweaters were real.

Family First Credit Union’s board said it was reviewing the situation, and Smith apologized and deleted the post. She called it insensitive and in poor judgment.

“I made a mistake. I own that mistake, and I am committed to learning from it,” she said, adding the picture “should never have been created or shared.”

Ultimately, the apology wasn’t enough for the credit union, issuing a statement Smith had been let go.

In a Facebook post, the company, based in Saginaw, Michigan—north of Detroit, said Chief Operations Officer Jason Acosta would serve as interim CEO.

“We sincerely apologize for the concern, disappointment and pain this situation has caused our members and community,” the statement said.

“We understand that members of our community may hold different perspectives about this decision. Our responsibility is to act in the best interest of the Credit Union, uphold the trust of our members and continue putting our community first.”

The Lake Ontario renaming is not Trump’s first foray into geographic fantasy, having ‘renamed’ the Gulf of Mexico on his inauguration day in 2025 to ‘Gulf of America.’

Michigan, where Smith’s former employer is based, borders four of the five Great Lakes, but not Lake Ontario—which borders only New York on the U.S. side.

The credit union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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