Viral social media posts claimed famed linguistics scholar Noam Chomsky died. But his family said that’s not true.
A June 18 post on Threads said: “RIP Professor Noam Chomsky!! You made this world a better place!!” A different Threads post said: “RIP TO A REAL ONE,” featuring Chomsky’s photo.
Similar claims were posted on X.
The Threads posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads, and Instagram.)
Chomsky’s wife, Valeria Wasserman Chomsky, told The Associated Press and Agence France-Press on June 18 that the reports were “false.” She also told ABC News journalist Chris Looft, “He is well.”
Noam Chomsky, 95, was discharged from a Sao Paulo hospital on June 18 where he was receiving treatment for a 2023 stroke, hospital administrators said in a statement published by Brazilian media.
Jacobin Magazine and The New Statesman, two outlets where Chomsky has published articles, reported that he died. The outlets have since removed their obituaries of him. An article celebrating Chomsky’s life and work is live on Jacobin’s website with a correction appended: “This article was tagged as an obituary following erroneous reports of Noam Chomsky’s death.” The New Statesman acknowledged the error and apologized to the Chomsky family and former Greece finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, whose writing the magazine had used in its obituary.
Chomsky’s official Facebook page had no new update on his condition as of June 21. PolitiFact contacted a correspondence email listed on Chomsky’s website but did not receive a response. The University of Arizona, where Chomsky is a laureate professor of linguistics, has also not published news about his death.
We rate the claim that Chomsky died False.