Updates:

Might be best for mods to lock this post at this point (is that a thing on Lemmy?) because this story is basically wrapped. The FBI says a bullet caused some ear damage. Maybe it was bullet shrapnel from a ricochet or something like that, but later photos show the teleprompters in-tact so it wasn’t shards of glass from those. Trump’s usage of the bandage (and the assassination attempt) as symbols and political tools has been discussed at length and I don’t think conspiratorial thinking beyond that is very productive. Pete Souza took his own account down after getting a lot of harassment, so no further conspiracies are needed regarding X-formerly-known-as-Twitter at this time.

A photo of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump taken on Saturday without his ear bandage has sparked a wave of speculation.

The image, taken by Alex Brandon of the Associated Press on July 27 and shared by photojournalist Pete Souza on X, formerly Twitter, shows Trump walking up an airplane staircase with an apparently fully healed ear wound just weeks after he was shot with a high-powered rifle.

Souza, known for his tenure as the chief official White House photographer for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, posted Brandon’s photo on his now-deactivated X account on Saturday, writing, “AP photo this morning. Look closely at his ear that was ‘hit’ by a bullet from an AR-15 assault rifle.”

Souza’s profile, @PeteSouza, which had over 200,000 followers, now reads, “This account doesn’t exist, try searching for another,” implying that he has deleted or deactivated it. If he had been banned, it would read, “Account suspended. X suspends accounts which violate the X rules.”