Nicki Minaj’s X Engagement Questioned as Bot Study Links Amplification to MAGA Network

If you would’ve told me in 2014 that Nicki Minaj would be trending for alleged political bot activity instead of pink wigs and rap beefs, I would’ve laughed. Yet here we are.

A new analysis from disinformation detection firm Cyabra, first reported by Politico, claims that more than 18,000 fake accounts amplified Minaj’s political content on X during a six-week window between November 11 and December 28. According to the study, roughly 33 percent of the profiles interacting with her posts in that sample were deemed inauthentic. On one day, December 26, fake profiles allegedly made up 56 percent of the comments on her political posts.

That goes beyond typical fan hype and starts to resemble an organized political push.

The MAGA Glow-Up

Minaj’s pivot into overt conservative politics has been loud. She appeared alongside Donald Trump at the so-called Trump Accounts Summit, where he praised her publicly and filmed a friendly TikTok. She also echoed narratives around Christian persecution in Nigeria and criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s alignment with transgender rights.

Cyabra’s report claims the bot network didn’t just casually retweet. The accounts used “highly similar language” to defend Minaj when authentic users criticized her. Some posted longer, polished comments meant to look organic. One example read like a Hallmark card from a burner account.

Cyabra says it is about 85 percent confident the 18,000-plus accounts are fake, with confidence rising into the 90s when narrowing to the most suspicious profiles. Inorganic activity typically represents 7 to 10 percent of normal discourse, according to the firm. The ratio seen around Minaj allegedly mirrors what researchers observe during wars and presidential elections.

That is not your average fan war.

The report also found overlap between accounts boosting Minaj and content from Turning Point USA. When conversations turned toxic, amplification reportedly increased. In algorithm terms, outrage equals reach.

Real Influencers Acting Like Bots

Cyabra didn’t only flag anonymous accounts. It noted that real conservative influencers such as Dom Lucre and Matt Wallace amplified Minaj’s talking points in synchronized ways. The firm’s CEO described patterns that resembled coordinated campaigns, with accounts riding the same narrative wave.

Lucre dismissed the findings as absurd and framed the report as liberals panicking over Minaj pulling audiences rightward. Wallace did not respond publicly.

Meanwhile, Trump ally Alex Bruesewitz escalated things by dragging Cardi B into the mess. He highlighted a now-deleted tweet in which Cardi threatened legal action after being linked to Cyabra through her agent Mike G’s advisory role. Cardi denied any involvement and accused Bruesewitz of smearing her name to score political points.

So now the Barbz vs. Bardi Gang feud is intersecting with U.S. election politics. What a timeline.

Listen, you involved me in something that has nothing to do wit me so now we’re gonna talk about the facts.. Cyabra is a data company with a lot of investors like Mike G, customers like Elon Musk and Pepsi that use that company for data and even has Mike Pompeo on the board of… https://t.co/OloFQXnj2v

— Cardi B (@iamcardib) February 23, 2026

Bots, Black Celebs and Political Realignment

Experts quoted in the coverage say botnets do more than flood comment sections. High engagement signals to algorithms that content is hot, which pushes it beyond a creator’s follower base. That is how posts jump from stan Twitter to mainstream political discourse.

Minaj’s evolution into a MAGA-adjacent figure comes as Trump and his allies chase a multiracial working-class coalition. Bringing a global hip-hop icon into that orbit is strategic. Even if celebrities cannot magically convert their fanbases, they can shift the vibe.

Representatives for Minaj and Turning Point USA did not respond to requests for comment in the reporting.

Cyabra says it analyzed more than a million interactions and identified 18,784 suspected fake profiles ready to boost Minaj’s content. The company works with governments and corporations to detect manipulation campaigns, and it claims to use machine learning to flag temporal synchronization, linguistic uniformity and demographic inconsistencies.

In other words, this was not just vibes. It was data.

And let’s be real. First she was accused of botting streams. Now her political engagement is under scrutiny. The cultural shift is wild.

If you would’ve told me in 2014 that Nicki Minaj would align with MAGA narratives while thousands of suspected bots and hyper-partisan accounts amplified her posts, I would’ve called you a hater.

Yet here we are watching stan culture morph into something that looks a lot like a digital campaign machine.

Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images