A satirical story about Twitter CEO Elon Musk filing a lawsuit against Whoopi Goldberg, host of ABC’s “The View,” appears to have been taken seriously by some users online.
A tweet shared a headline that reads, “Elon Musk Files $60 Million Suit Against Whoopi and The View” (here).
A post on Facebook shared the same headline with the caption: “He has had enough of Whoopi’s nonsense. He’s going to make them pay” (here).
The story appears to originate from the website SpaceXMania (archive.ph/gft34) where it is explicitly labeled “satire.” The site includes a disclaimer that it “does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of its content” (spacexmania.com/disclaimer/).
The website has previously published satirical content that was misconstrued online, as reported by Reuters Fact Check (here).
The story has been reshared by other satirical websites, including on Dunning-Kruger-Times.com (archive.ph/pR7jG), a subsidiary of the “America’s Last Line of Defense” network. The About Us section explicitly states its contents are “parody, satire, and tomfoolery” (dunning-kruger-times.com/29-2/).
Representatives for Musk and Goldberg’s daytime show The View on ABC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
VERDICT
Satire. A story about Elon Musk filing a lawsuit against Whoopi Goldberg stems from a satirical website.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts (here).
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.