Contrary to widespread rumour, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is not dead.
Despite news of the billionaire being involved in a battery explosion trending on Twitter, rumors of Musk’s death have been completely fabricated. In fact, the sheer volume of posts on social media and online message boards indicates a potentially coordinated effort to manipulate the company’s already volatile stock prices.
News of Musk’s death began surging on Twitter as hundreds of tweets from new and low-follower accounts began to flood the hashtag ” #RIPELON .” These showcased photos of manipulated headlines appearing to have originated from Al Jazeera, Buzzfeed, Fox News, and Tesla-focused news site Electrek. Another falsified image signed by “The Tesla PR Team” {which doesn’t exist since Tesla dissolved it last year} also specifically addresses the company’s falling stock price as a result of Musk’s supposed death.
The first tweet bearing the hashtag appeared at 10:30 a.m. ET and featured a photo of Elon Musk with other deceased celebrities like Michael Jackson, Harry Potter character Snape, Duke (the dog from Bush’s Baked Beans), and Harambe . Shortly thereafter, links were posted to Reddit and 4chan which pointed to fake URLs from BBC, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and more. When questioned about the links not working or posts being deleted from popular Tesla Subreddits, posters immediately began to claim that pro-Tesla investors were actively deleting the news to protect Tesla’s stock from falling further.
Within an hour, it fell nearly six percent.