Does a real photo show Elon Musk and Ted Cruz posing together while two furries are passing in the background? No, that's not true: A real photo that was posted on Instagram by Ted Cruz has been digitally altered. The changes to the photo are subtle, but unflattering. The faces of the two men have been changed to take away…
Is "Tech world on fire" over news that Elon Musk bought Facebook in order to "delete it"? No, that's not true: Meta (which owns Facebook) had not, as of this writing, announced or documented a sale, as is required of publicly traded companies. Lead Stories found no credible news reports of an impending sale to Musk. The site that generated…
Did Elon Musk acquire Donald Trump's Truth Social for $10 billion in November 2025? No, that's not true: A message purporting to be from Donald Trump's Truth Social account was fake. The person who posted a fake screenshot of the fake message wrote that they did so to entertain themselves. There are no news reports of Musk buying Truth Social…
Did prominent Americans like Elon Musk, Caitlin Clark, Stephen Colbert, and Joy Behar each pay down $667,000 of schoolkids' lunchroom debts? No, there's no evidence that's true: In the case of FBI Director Kash Patel, the gift was inflated to $979,000, which would be more than five times his FBI salary.The posts making the claims include no evidence by which…
Does a real video show a body-armor-wearing riot policeman smiling as he pepper-sprays a woman confronting him at a protest? No, that's not true: The video is labeled "Sora" with watermarks indicating it was created using OpenAI's text-to-video app. It originated on an account devoted to improbable wild animal videos, also labeled as Sora productions. Sora creates fake but "hyperreal"…
This is what fact checkers call a "prebunk." A prebunk is like a debunk (another word for fact check), only it's an advance notice of an anticipated false claim. This article is intended to inoculate you from future outbreaks of a specific type of false claims about your favorite entertainment celebrities, sports stars, and politicians. We call this "Viet Spam"…
Did Donald Trump (or another famous person) dismiss the achievements of Dick Van Dyke (or some other celebrity) by saying, "He's just a dancer." (or some other talent)? No, that's not true: This story about a broadcast studio turning into a "televised earthquake" is nothing but a formulaic structure to pair the names and pictures of some famous people for…
Did Elon Musk threaten to end his Super Bowl sponsorship if Bad Bunny performs at the halftime show? No, that's not true: Elon Musk does not sponsor the Super Bowl. The claim that he does and has threatened to end his sponsorship was published and promoted by a network of clickbait websites and Facebook page operated from Vietnam. The same…
Did Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey or various other people issue an ultimatum to the NFL about ending sponsorship of the Super Bowl if singer Bad Bunny was allowed to perform at the halftime show? No, that's not true: A Coca-Cola spokesperson denied it and a viral quote that said "I WILL END MY SPONSORSHIP OF THE SUPER BOWL IF THEY…
After Charlie Kirk was killed, Did Elon Musk announce that he would be ending every partnership tied to LGBTQ+ brands? No, that's not true: This made-up story used names and themes trending in September 2025 to drive clicks to a website. There is no evidence supporting this fake narrative about Musk; no legitimate reporting, no quoted statements, and no tweets…
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
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