Fact-Check: Elon Musk called Donald Trump a ‘dumbass’ on twitter?
The screenshots of the tweet going viral seem to illustrate Musk’s verified account calling then U.S. President Donald Trump a “dumbass” in answer to a tweet by Trump citing the Space X Falcon Heavy launch on Feb. 6, 2018 ( here ).
Nexus News gathered an archived version of Trump’s authentic tweet ( here ).
The tweet reads: “Congratulations @ElonMusk and @SpaceX on the successful #FalconHeavy launch. This achievement, along with @NASA’s commercial and international partners, continues to show American ingenuity at its best!”
Elon Musk, at the time, chief executive of the aerospace company SpaceX, responded, saying: “Thank you on behalf of SpaceX. An exciting future lies ahead!” (see here ).
However, Reuters report that the forged screenshot (which is likely to have been edited from the original exchange as the date and minute timestamps match), appears to show Musk replying: “I’m from South Africa you dumbass.” view screenshot ( here ).
In a fact-check, Nexus News found no proof of Musk ever tweeting this. An advanced search on his Twitter feed brought no related findings.( bit.ly/3Lm6btN ).
The falsified screenshot which has been online since at least Feb. 10, 2018 ( here) (here ) was debunked since by Snopes ( here ). However, the content has resurfaced after the information went viral of Musk’s Twitter deal on April 25, 2022.
Reuters further reports that an iteration published on Twitter has been retweeted more than 2,400 times since it was posted on April 25 archived here ( here ).
“People worrying that Elon Musk will support Trump on Twitter easily forget their dialogue on the platform,” a Facebook user commented ( here ). Similar posts can be seen ( here ) ( here ) ( here ).
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk finalized a deal to buy Twitter Inc for $44 billion cash on April 25 in a transaction that will change course of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world’s richest person.
