An unusual group of interns – Star Wars villain Jabba the Hutt and Spider-Man’s alter-ego Peter Parker – have been credited in President Donald Trump’s annual economic report.
The names are listed as helping with the Economic Report of the President, which analyses the health of the US economy and the president’s economic agenda.
Buried on page 624 of the report, the names include the human alter-egos of Captain America and Batman – Steve Rogers and Bruce Wayne – as well as Spider-Man’s relative Aunt May and Monty Python star John Cleese.
A ‘John Snow’ is also listed – which could refer to the Jon Snow of Game of Thrones fame.
Alongside the unlikely names are a number of apparently real-life interns.
Martha Gimbel, researcher director for the jobs site Indeed, posted a screenshot of the dubious interns list on Twitter.
“The Economic Report of the President has revealed that the quality of interns at CEA is much better than it was when I was there,” she joked.
The Council of Economic Advisers later tweeted to confirm the names were an intentional prank, intended to brighten up the 711-page report.
It wrote: “Thank you for noticing, our interns are indeed super heroes! We’ve thought so all along, but we knew it’d take a little more to get them the attention they deserve.
“Did folks really think this was a mistake?!? That would never have made it past our fact-checkers — who, in fact, include our interns!” it added.
A similar prank appeared in last year’s economic report, in which Star Trek characters James T Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard were listed as working for the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
