Did entrepreneur Elon Musk discuss the Fruit of the Loom conspiracy theory with Joe Rogan as one TikTok video claims? No, that's not true: There's no evidence that Musk talked with the podcaster about that subject. Additionally, digital forensics and deepfake-testing websites, which analyze audio, video and other media, suggest that artificial intelligence was used to generate the voice purported to be Musk's.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by muskshood on May 15, 2024. The post's caption says:
What Mandela effects are the strongest? #mandelaeffect #fruitoftheloom #logos #conspiracy #theory #conspiracytiktok
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu May 23 15:30:45 2024 UTC)
Mandela effect
The Mandela effect, mentioned in the post's caption, describes a phenomenon where many people share a false memory of an event that never actually happened. The Fruit of the Loom conspiracy theory, the subject of the video above, is an example of the Mandela effect.
In this case, the theory suggests that a cornucopia was once part of the Fruit of the Loom branding but has been removed, and its existence denied, as part of an experiment to see how easy it would be to erase history. A fake "Elon Musk" outlines the theory in the clip.
Response to claim: Fruit of the Loom
Faced with this claim, Fruit of the Loom created a page on its website (archived here) to answer frequently asked questions. It says:
If there has never been a cornucopia in the logo, why the claim that Fruit of the Loom is misleading or 'gaslighting' consumers?
Fruit of the Loom, in over 170 years of manufacturing, has never used, applied for, or registered a trademark design/logo depicting a cornucopia. A recent post on social media appears to have referenced a cropped picture containing only a small portion of the of a trademark design application, originally applied for in 1973 by Fruit of the Loom, Inc. with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for use with laundry detergent.
One of the key components excluded from the cropped image in the social post, was the actual trademark design which was the subject of the application. That trademark design, pictured below, was ultimately registered in 1974, and allowed by Fruit of the Loom to expire in 1988. The full application inclusive of the actual trademark design can be found at the USPTO: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=73006089&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
Google search
Lead Stories did searches using keywords on Google News, visible here and here, which found no credible documents or reporting as of May 23, 2024, to corroborate the claim that Musk discussed the Fruit of the Loom conspiracy theory with Rogan or anyone else.
Joe Rogan Experience
Musk has made multiple appearances on Rogan's podcast but Lead Stories found only one instance where Musk was wearing the same T-shirt with the geometric design as was seen in the video on TikTok, Episode #1470 from May 7, 2020. Throughout the two-hour show, there's no mention of the Fruit of the Loom conspiracy theory or the Mandela effect.
Deepfake detection
To assess the clip's authenticity, Lead Stories also ran the TikTok video through a pair of online tools -- Hive Moderation and the DeepFake-O-Meter -- to check whether the video or its audio was altered or generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
The results for each tool can be found below:
Hive Moderation
The tool on the Hive Moderation website said the video is 99.9 percent "likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content":
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Thu May 23 18:22:50 2024 UTC)
DeepFake-O-Meter
The tool on the University at Buffalo's Media Forensic Laboratory website said the audio had an 87.7 percent likelihood of being AI-generated:
(Source: DeepFake-O-Meter screenshot taken on Thu May 23 18:51:37 2024 UTC)
Read more
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims involving Elon Musk can be found here.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims related to deepfakes can be found here.
