WIRED published an article about GrapheneOS that was nearly entirely based on fabrications from James Donaldson, who has spent eight years trying to destroy the privacy-focused mobile OS project and its founder Daniel Micay. The publication gave Donaldson a major platform despite his claims being thoroughly debunked in the ongoing lawsuit with Copperhead, the company he co-founded.

Copperhead was forced to drop nearly all claims in the lawsuit and discontinue their closed source fork of GrapheneOS. Donaldson stole approximately $300,000 in Bitcoin donations from the project before attempting to monetize forks while falsely claiming credit for work he didn't create. GrapheneOS has since grown to around 10 full time developers through donations, operating as a non-profit where Micay only receives income through GitHub Sponsors.

WIRED failed to verify Donaldson's claims or interview the third co-founder Dan McGrady. The publication made an unsubstantiated claim that the community manager could be Micay in disguise, despite the manager having a different writing style and speaking languages Micay doesn't. GrapheneOS provided detailed responses to fact checkers, but WIRED told them the article wouldn't focus on history—then made it the primary focus while omitting nearly all their responses.