A custom sticker printer sent a pro-Trump mass SMS and enraged its clients

The fallout from the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally over the weekend is seeping into even the most tangential circles — in this case, the print-on-demand custom sticker industry.

This week, Sticker Mule, a popular option for companies, creators, event organizers, and others wanting branded merchandise, shared a long message expressing support for Trump.

“People are terrified to admit they support Trump. I’ve been scared myself,” cofounder Anthony Constantino wrote in a post on the social media platform X. “The more people realize that kind-hearted, compassionate people support Trump, the sooner the hate will end.”

The company also sent an email and text message to customers containing much of the same language — but didn’t miss a chance to promote its products, plugging a sale it’s running on shirts this week. Sticker Mule didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Customers did not like that, to put it lightly. Many have vowed to stop ordering stickers from the company; others questioned why Constantino thought it appropriate to blast his customer email list with political endorsements. But the far right has embraced Sticker Mule — and this isn’t the first time the company has tried to lean into politics for online engagement.

For the last couple of years, Sticker Mule has shared a steady stream of posts on X aligned with the right, though none as plainly political as endorsing a far-right candidate on the official company account. In 2022, the company was deep in the release of the so-called Twitter Files, a series of select internal documents that Elon Musk gave right-wing pundits access to. The Twitter Files saga led to sustained and intense harassment of former Twitter employees, including Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety, whom Sticker Mule also went after.

The company has also regularly posted in support of Musk, retweeting his posts and thanking him for fixing hate on the platform. (Reports indicate hate speech has soared on X since Musk’s takeover.) Not to miss an opportunity to profit, Sticker Mule gloated on X of its boost in sales following pro-Musk posts: “Our gift to everyone is to show that Internet haters are totally powerless. Don’t fear them, live happy! Our sales exploded after we got attacked for praising ELON MUSK,” the company posted in 2022.

Which is all to say that though the Trump endorsement seems random and sudden, it’s actually the oldest trick in the book for companies wanting to drum up business and loyalty from a specific audience. Much of the anger directed at Sticker Mule questioned why the company would torch a portion of its business to make a political statement. But it’s actually the opposite: Sticker Mule, like many other companies, has been chasing the money all along. It’s not yet clear whether this time will be any different.