Did Travis Kelce threaten Elon Musk on X over his remarks about Taylor Swift? No, that's not true: The account that posted the "threat" told Lead Stories it was fake. There is no record that Kelce, Swift's boyfriend who is tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs football team, ever replied to Musk's comments about the superstar singer.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on September 11, 2024. It said:
I would pay good money to watch Travis Kelce kick the living shit out of Elon Musk.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Sep 13 16:33:22 2024 UTC)
The tweet (archived here) from Musk is real. He posted the message on September 11, 2024, about Swift after she endorsed the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Swift called herself a "childless cat lady" in a dig at comments by Donald Trump's running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, about childless cat ladies (archived here). Swift posted her message on her Instagram account (archived here) on September 10, 2024.
The account @theABinKC (archived here) posted the original message purporting to be from Kelce. The account owner told Lead Stories via direct message on September 14, 2024, "yes its fake and yes i made it." The account owner also said:
I think it's pretty obvious that it was fake. I had a bet with my buddy @wearpurplepants that i couldn't get 100 likes out of the reply. He now has to kiss me right on the lips and you better believe im gonna make him pay up.
The account @wearpurplepants previously posted a similar message while trolling a Washington Nationals fan account. Here is a screenshot of that exchange posted by another X user (archived here):
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Sep 13 16:42:32 2024 UTC)
A search (archived here) of Kelce's X account @tkelce and part of the message yielded no matching results, as this screenshot shows:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Sep 13 15:12:45 2024 UTC)
At the time this fact check was written, Snopes had reviewed the same claim.
Lead Stories previously has debunked other claims about Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift and Elon Musk.
