Did Elon Musk announce in November 2024 that Tesla was launching a $10,000 home to provide more affordable housing? No, that's not true: The Tesla CEO made no such announcement on the company website nor through his account on X. Similar claims of a "Tesla House" go back years, though there has been no such announcement.
This claim appeared in a post on Facebook (archived here) on November 14, 2024, under the title "Elon Musk: I Am Officially Releasing Tesla's NEW $10,000 House Today!"
It began:
we look at Tesla CEO Elon Musk's historic announcement of the new $10,000 Tesla House, which has sent shockwaves through the housing and automotive sectors alike. This unique design not only transforms cheap housing, but it also redefines sustainable living, perfectly aligning with Tesla's objective to speed the world's transition to renewable energy. The Tesla House is a small, energy-efficient home outfitted with Tesla's solar panels and Powerwall technology, allowing homeowners to produce and store their own energy while breaking away from regular power systems.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 16:12:11 2024 UTC)
Musk's business interests are varied and widespread. He is the CEO (archived here) of Tesla (archived here), the largest producer of electric vehicles in the United States (archived here), according to industry analyst Cox Automotive. Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX (archived here), which calls itself "the largest and most powerful space transportation system ever developed." He also owns the social media platform X where he posts often (archived here).
What he is not doing, as of this writing, is heading up the mass production of a $10,000 Tesla House.
A Lead Stories search of Musk's X account for "$10,000 house" (archived here) or "Tesla House" (archived here) found no mention of such an announcement. This was also true for a Google search of the Tesla press page (archived here).
Lead Stories also reached out to Tesla's investor relations and will include their comment should they respond.
In 2021, the billionaire did reveal on his then-Twitter page (archived here) that he had been living in an approximately $50,000 house in south Texas:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Nov 22 15:34:11 2024 UTC)
In 2017, Musk also tweeted a story (archived here) showing how a Model X could tow a "tiny house." But there's no evidence any such house has been mass-produced by Tesla.
Claims about Musk announcing a "Tesla House" stretch back years.
A YouTube Elon Musk fan channel has repeatedly posted Musk making such announcements starting in 2022 (archived here) using many of the same video clips but with the price changing from $10,000 to $15,000 and back to $10,000.
Others claim Musk announced a Tesla House at a price of $13,700, $6,789 or even $5,999.
The image of Musk in the post on Facebook has the characteristic cartoon quality of a generative AI image. Analysis of the image using the tools at TrueMedia.org found "substantial evidence of manipulation," the rating given to AI-generated images. Read the full report here (archived here). At the time of writing, human analysts at TrueMedia had not yet examined the image.
At the time this was written, PolitiFact had reviewed the same claim.
Other Lead Stories debunks of far-fetched reports about Musk "announcements" can be read here.
