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| - On July 27, 2024, X user @its_The_Dr reposted (archived) a screenshot of another post claiming U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. – better known as AOC – became a multimillionaire after serving in Congress for just over five years.
The screenshot displayed a Truth Social post created by the popular user @WallStreetApes on Sept. 18, 2022. That post read, "#AOC was $8k in debt in 2019. She got elected to #Congress with a salary of $174k per year. Her net worth is now estimated to be $29,000,000. Welcome to politics in the United States of Corruption. #CongressCriminals."
Other users also reposted the same rumor on Facebook and X.
For example, on July 29, 2024, one X user responded to a post from Ocasio-Cortez, writing, "What's weird is that when you were elected you were $8k in debt. Now you are worth $29 million. Pretty weird considering you get paid $150k and only been in office for less than 5 years." Other users also referenced the purported $29 million number in replies to Ocasio-Cortez, also on July 29. We've received past reader mail about this subject, as well.
However, according to Ocasio-Cortez's own financial disclosures posted to the U.S. House website, this rumor was false. As we see every day, too many online users failed to spend a few seconds searching online to confirm the truth before sharing false information.
Reviewing Ocasio-Cortez's Financial Disclosures
As Reuters previously reported in August 2022, Ocasio-Cortez's financial disclosures showed that she was far from being a millionaire, much less a multimillionaire. (Her campaign website ocasiocortez.com also mentioned this same article.)
We reviewed Ocasio-Cortez's financial disclosures from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The disclosures displayed some data in ranges rather than exact dollar figures.
According to the most recent disclosure from 2023, Ocasio-Cortez documented she had no more than between $1,001 and $15,000 in each of three different bank accounts. The total for these three accounts lands somewhere between $3,003 and $45,000.
She also recorded in the disclosure between $1,001 and $15,000 in additional funds in a fourth account for a 401(k) plan.
Further, she noted in the disclosure her ongoing student loan payments, with an "amount of liability" landing somewhere between $15,001 and $50,000.
In other words, just in terms of cash, Ocasio-Cortez was at least $940,000 short of being a millionaire, with the maximum possible amount of the four accounts totaling $60,000, and that's before even factoring in her student loan debt.
In 2023, we presented the Reuters article and the financial disclosures to Ocasio-Cortez's press office, asking if they had any further comment or resources. At the time, they replied, "Nothing to add."
For further reading, we previously reported on a similar false rumor claiming Ocasio-Cortez owned one of the world's most expensive houses.
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