Did Elon Musk say: “Anyone caught promoting propaganda will be suspended from X”?

Claim:

An image shows Elon Musk posting on X: “Anyone caught promoting propaganda will be suspended from X.”

Rating:

Context

Elon Musk never posted these words. Users shared a fake screenshot. We found no evidence to suggest that Elon Musk posted and then deleted the remark, or that he expressed the same thought elsewhere.

X’s billionaire owner Elon Musk is rumored to have once posted on his social media platform: “Anyone caught promoting propaganda will be suspended from X.”

This rumor circulated in early September 2024 on Facebook, Reddit, Threads, Tumblr, and X.

For example, one X user posted a screenshot of the quote in reference to Musk’s promotion of an unfounded rumor that Haitian immigrants had killed and eaten domestic cats and ducks in a park in Springfield, Ohio. The user’s post was then embedded on other websites, including Infowars.com, Reddit, and even soccer forums.

Another person posted: “I guess he should hang himself then. He’s a major propaganda broadcaster. Several other users I also shared the screenshot.

However, Elon Musk never posted this quote. We have not found any credible article mentioning the appearance of such an announcement. Furthermore, as one user pointed out, no response has been received accusing Elon Musk of posting and then deleting these words around the time a user created the very first post containing the exact words “anyone caught promoting propaganda” – September 7, 2024. This post was a response to another user who may have posted the fake screenshot of the post a few minutes earlier.

It’s possible that the user who created the fake Elon Musk quote was inspired by media coverage of a foreign propaganda campaign centered on social media. On September 5, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that a Tennessee-based content creation company called Tenet Media paid far-right influencers with large X-rated followings to promote Russian propaganda.

While it’s possible that Elon Musk has previously posted a remark containing similar language, we have found no record of him using those exact words. We will update this story in the future if we discover similar posts or quotes.

5 Times Elon Musk Actually Threatened To Suspend You For Violating His Rules

While Musk never posted the message mentioned above, we noted five other times he issued public statements threatening suspension for violating specific platform policies.

For example, in July 2020, before his purchase of Twitter, Musk posted a message: “Accounts that unequivocally advocate harassment should be suspended with a warning, and terminated if repeated.”

In November 2022, he posted: “Going forward, any Twitter account found to be engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended.”

A month later, Musk shared his thoughts on the act of doxxing, saying: “Any account that discloses someone’s real-time location information will be suspended, as it is a physical security violation. This includes posting links to sites that contain real-time location information. Posting locations that someone has been to with a slight delay is not a security issue, so it is acceptable.”

In June 2023, he addressed attempts to “rig” the platform’s verification system: “Accounts that attempt to rig our verification system with unrelated self-promotion or advertise in a deceptive manner will be suspended.”

Then, in April 2024, he noted about agricultural engagement: ““Any account engaged in engagement farming will be suspended and its source will be traced.”