Elon Musk compared trump to hitler

Question

The line between news and satire has blurred so much that the latter has been shared on social media as fact, where it quickly spreads misinformation.

Answer 1

The claim that Elon Musk compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is false. The origins of the claim likely stem from a post on X sharing a doctored screenshot from The Atlantic, that depicted a nonexistent Atlantic article titled "Trump is Literally Hitler", to which Elon Musk commented on, foolishly believing it to be true. The purpose of the faked screenshot is to likely ragebait interactions from right-wingers to sympathize with the former president and to discredit The Atlantic as a news source. In reality, The Atlantic's article was regarding Trump's admiration for dictators and disparagement of veterans. The Forbes article linked helped support this.

Answer 2

The title of this post is misleading. The article from Forbes and the exert taken is actually referring to a photoshopped article that an anonymous user posted. However, Elon Musk comes into the conversation because he reposted the photoshopped message with his own addition, "They are literally foaming at the mouth." According to a different news source linked below, Musk's comment was taken as him calling out "anti-Trump hate" made by the opposing political party. Users have been criticizing him for not being able to tell it was fake and encouraging audiences to be upset at a photoshopped image.

https://newrepublic.com/post/187463/maga-musk-fake-news-story-atlantic-trump-hitler

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/10/23/elon-musk-shares-made-up-headline-that-compares-trump-to-hitler-and-its-not-the-first-time/

Answer 3

There was not a point in the article that stated that Elon Musk compared Trump to Hitler. What actually happened was that Musk reposted a photoshopped image of a fake news article that doesn't exist, and they showed that Musk commented on it saying that "this is insane" and that people are "literally foaming at the mouth." This is getting the wrong idea from this article.

Answer 4

The author used info from Susan Campbell, a Prize-winning journalist, a widely-read newspaper columnist, and the author of three books. However,  the claim that Elon Musk compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is not true because Elon must tweeted “They are literally foaming at the mouth” but nothing that implies he compared Trump to Hitler. The article calls the Atlantic a "legitimate news organization" even though it does not always clearly delineate between reporting and opinion content. The author dramatizes the situation, making it seem like everyone believed it was true. You could very well search it up and the first thing that pops up is Atlistic’s article about how they did NOT publish the “Trump is literally Hitler”, so this misinformation is easy to debunk.

Elon Musks Post

Susan Campbell