Tech mogul Elon Musk is suing Whoopi Goldberg and the ABC present “The View” for tens of millions, claiming they’re “mendacity” about him.
A viral rumor that Elon Musk is suing Whoopi Goldberg and “The View” present for tens of millions circulated broadly on-line in late 2024.
(X consumer @ivankatrumpo)
Nonetheless, the rumor originated from the Fb web page SpaceX Fanclub, which posted a purported quote from Musk in August 2024:
Elon Musk Sues The View and Whoopi Goldberg for $80 Million: “They Are Mendacity About Me”
(Fb consumer “SpaceX Fanclub”)
The Fb web page additionally shared a hyperlink to an article on esspots.com, which said:
In an sudden twist of occasions, tech mogul Elon Musk, the person behind such groundbreaking ventures as SpaceX and Tesla, is pushing again in opposition to media large The View and its illustrious host, Whoopi Goldberg. However this is not your odd movie star spat; it comes within the type of a hefty $60 million defamation lawsuit.
[…]The lawsuit stems from a current look Musk made on The View. What ought to have been a pleasant dialog about his newest ventures rapidly devolved right into a heated conflict of personalities. With the same old back-and-forth chatter one expects from daytime tv, the interview took a bitter flip when Goldberg, recognized for her direct method, began questioning Musk’s enterprise ethics and private character.
The host’s barrage of criticisms got here thick and quick, alleging Musk of harboring harmful ambitions and performing unethically in his enterprise practices. Goldberg went so far as accusing him of making a monopoly within the tech business and damaging the Earth via his SpaceX initiatives.
Some readers appeared to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life occasions, with one commenter stating, “Good for you Elon, the view should be stopped.” Nonetheless, there was no evidence that Musk filed such a lawsuit.
SpaceX Fanclub and esspots.com — a Fb web page and affiliated web site — describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature. SpaceX Fanclub’s Fb web page “Introduction” part states: “We put up SATIRE, nothing on this web page is actual.”
Esspots.com’s disclaimer said:
Welcome to Esspots.com, a web site that focuses on satire, parody, and humor. Earlier than you proceed to learn our content material, we want to emphasize that nothing on this web site is actual. The entire articles, tales, and commentary discovered on Esspots.com are completely fictitious and created for the aim of leisure solely.
Esspots.com has a historical past of constructing up tales for shares and feedback.
The fictional story unfold in August 2024, amid news of Brazil banning entry to X within the nation after a courtroom ordered Musk to take down content material on the platform that it stated threatened the integrity of its elections. Musk refused to conform, triggering the ban.
Snopes has addressed comparable satirical claims about Musk and Goldberg previously, together with a false rumor that claimed Goldberg had confronted South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott on set and walked out crying, and a false rumor that Musk had banned author Stephen King from X.
For background, right here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that decision their output humorous or satirical.
