Elon Musk: Fortune magazine exposed by ‘random guy on internet’ for publishing false claims about Elon Musk and X

In an embarrassing twist for Fortune magazine, an anonymous user revealed how he misled the publication into posting false statements about Elon Musk and the social media platform. X. The incident sparked a broader conversation about media credibility And fact check practices.
The controversy began when Fortune published an article on January 9 titled “Elon Musk pushes to remove dates from X posts, plans new $8 listing fee.” The article cited “sources” to claim that Musk intended to remove date stamps from posts on X and introduce fees for account creation.
However, shortly after its publication, the article was exposed as a hoax. The anonymous user who provided the information to Fortune turned to X, admitting that he had fabricated the story to expose the media’s gullibility.
“Fortune published an article based on fake news I sent them from an anonymous email address,” the user wrote in a thread. “They didn’t even bother to check the details.”
The user revealed that he had posed as a disgruntled employee of X who claimed to have been fired by Musk for opposing the supposed removal of date stamps. They also shared screenshots of their email exchanges with Fortune correspondent Kaley Hays on .
“They trusted me and published false information. I’m just a random user on the internet, and yet they kept claiming the information came from their ‘sources’,” the user added.
The fallout forced Fortune to retract the article and issue an apology. In a statement, the publication admitted that its sources “did not meet our editorial standards” and apologized to Musk, X employees and readers.
Fortune retracted the article following the revelation and published an apology titled “correction” on its website: “On January 9, Fortune published an article titled ‘Elon Musk pushes to remove dates of X posts and plans to new registration fee of $8.” After publication, Fortune learned that a central source in this story intentionally misled our reporter during a series of exchanges. The origin and story do not meet our editorial standards and the story has been removed. We apologize to readers, Mr. Musk and the employees of X.”
Musk, an outspoken critic of mainstream media and advocate of citizen journalism, responded to the incident on X by saying: “That’s mainstream media for you. »
The anonymous user clarified that their intention was not to damage X’s reputation, but to expose vulnerabilities in the way mainstream media fact-checks their stories. “This shows how naive and easy to deceive they can be,” they concluded.