The news about Elon Musk saying Ukraine’s at fault for making everybody hate him was shared online—with a screenshot of what’s supposedly a screenshot from Fox News’s video. It’s fake.
What happened?
On March 13, on Telegram channels that regularly spread pro-Russian propaganda like (“Bear,” “Sheikh Temir,” and“Shkvarka 2.0” shared a post saying that Elon Musk, billionaire and Trump’s head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claimed that Ukraine is “guilty” of making “everybody” hate him on Fox News.
The news was shared on various blogs and forums (1, 2, 3) and on social media Х, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, and Russian VKontakte.
Analysis
Using reverse search, we’ve looked for the picture used in Telegram posts and found the identical picture (archive) from the Fox & Friends First program, but with a different title.
The original text is: “Musk: America will go bankrupt if we don’t solve the deficit.”
The shots used on Telegram are a fragment of the exclusive interview Donald Trump and Elon Musk did for the Hannity show on Fox News. The video for it was released on February 18.
During the program, Ukraine was mentioned once—by the host of the show. The discussion was actually dedicated to criticisms of DOGE’s activities and a “constitutional crisis” in America. Elon Musk didn’t mention Ukraine even once.
Conclusion: Fake
Author: Anna Ormanzhy
Other fact-check pieces
- No, Fox News didn’t write about Ukraine’s center for information operations receiving $140M per month from the USAID
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