Elon Musk called for ban on pride flag in schools? No, that's satire | Fact check
The claim: Elon Musk called for ban on pride flags in classrooms
A Sept. 6 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows side-by-side images of billionaire Elon Musk and a flag commonly flown by members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Elon Musk Says: ‘Pride Flags Should be Banned from Classrooms, Permanently!’” reads text in the image, which also appears as the post’s caption.
Between this post and similar ones circulating on Facebook, the claim was shared more than 100 times in four days. It also spread widely on Instagram.
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Our rating: False
There is no evidence Musk advocated for a ban on pride flags in schools. The claim originated from a satirical account.
Claim originated on satirical account
Musk, who has an estranged transgender daughter, has said he was “tricked” into agreeing to her gender-affirming care procedures, with the experience leading him to condemn what he termed the "woke mind virus." He announced plans to move the headquarters of two of his companies – SpaceX and X, formerly Twitter – to Texas over objections to a California law that bans the forced outing of LGBTQ+ students.
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But the claim in the Facebook post that he called for schools to ban the pride flag is false. There are no credible news reports about Musk calling for such a ban.
The claim was first shared in a Sept. 4 Facebook post from the SpaceX Fanclub account, which states in its intro section that “nothing on this page is real.” Its publisher, Tim Lawson, confirmed to USA TODAY that the story is a fabrication.
While both posts use a flipped version of the same Associated Press photo of Musk, the version published by SpaceX Fanclub includes a watermark that identifies it as satire. That watermark is not included in the Sept. 6 post.
Additionally, the comments to the Sept. 4 post include a link to a longer article published by Esspots.com that also is marked as satire. The Sept. 6 post includes a link to an article that is nearly a word-for-word copy of the Esspots.com article but does not include the satire label.
Both articles cite an X post from Musk that purportedly states, “Pride flags should be banned from classrooms, permanently! Time to focus on education, not agendas.” Musk's account contains no record of that post.
The Sept. 6 Facebook post is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where content originally presented as satire is captured and reposted in a way that makes it appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, which is what happened here.
USA TODAY previously debunked false claims that Musk banned actor Robert De Niro from X, was photographed wearing a pro-apartheid cap and called for a boycott of Tyson Foods.
USA TODAY reached out to a spokesperson for X but did not immediately receive a response. None of the social media users who shared the post provided evidence to support the claim when they responded to inquiries from USA TODAY.
Snopes debunked a version of the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
Tim Lawson, Sept. 9, Facebook message exchange with USA TODAY
@SpaceX Fanclub, Sept. 4, Facebook post
@SpaceX Fanclub, accessed Sept. 10, Facebook profile
Esspots.com, Sept. 5, Elon Musk Says: “Pride Flags Should Be Banned from Classrooms, Permanently!”
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No, Elon Musk didn't say schools should ban pride flag | Fact check
